the night light hits off, turning kisses to bites
by donutworry
Summary: Bonkai AU: Alone after Damon passes through her to rejoin the living, Bonnie finds herself in a bizarre, retro Mystic Falls devoid of a population. Desperate to understand her circumstances and find her way home, Bonnie searches for a way to revive her magic and get the hell back to her friends. But is this sparse world as lonely as she thinks when crosswords solve themselves?
1. Luxuria et Castitas

" **Prison World Shutcall"**

 _The blinds wide open so he can_

 _See you in the dark when you're sleeping_

 _Naked body, fresh out the shower_

 _You touch yourself after hours_

 _Ain't no man allowed in your bedroom_

 _You're sleeping alone in your bed_

 _But check your window, he's at your window_

 _-Tyler the Creator ft Frank Ocean; She_

* * *

"Bonnie!" Damon cries as he and Alaric approach her.

"Thank god," she heaves in relief, smiling at their grim faces. Alaric steps up to her, eyeing her in concern. There is no time to waste, so before he can speak she grabs his shoulders and feels the break and release sensation as he fades away from the howling winds and dim grey forest. She hunches over slightly as fatigue hits her, but tries to hide it as she turns to Damon.

"Where's Elena?" he asks.

"She made it," Bonnie reassures him with a smile. He nods.

"Okay."

"Come on," she steps forward and he nods. Right as she reaches out to grab him, Damon steps back.

"What about you?" he inquires. "What happens to you when this place goes?"

Bonnie shrugs and sends him a crooked smile. "Dunno. But Grams said she made sure I would find peace, and I trust her."

Damon gazes at her for short moment, blue eyes limpid and sad. He nods.

"Okay," he said. He comes closer and instead of letting her grab him, he reaches out and envelopes her in tight hug.

"I'm so sorry," he mutters before he crosses over. Damon continues to hold her even when he's back over and Bonnie clings to him, even though it's _Damon_. She doesn't know if she'll ever hug or touch another person again, and Damon's willingness to comfort her before she reaches the gates of oblivion is a boon.

She stares out over his shoulder at the whistling abyss and he starts to feel farther and farther, even though she knows neither of them have moved. The sky on the collapsing other side lightens to an eerie white glow and absently she whispers, "I hope it doesn't hurt."

Damon squeezes her fading body harder and rubs a hand through her hair. "Me too," he murmurs.

And then Bonnie Bennett is no more.

-o0o-

It doesn't hurt at all. There's howling wind and a feeling of weightlessness and then Bonnie is standing alone in the woods, pretty much exactly where she was. She looks around, bewildered. Sunlight filters down through the trees, dappling her coat and the ground. The hush that surrounds her is unnatural; Bonnie can't hear a single chirp from a bird or buzzing of mosquitos. The air is heavier, warmer than it just was.

Something else is off though and she can't place it.

The young Bennett begins to head for the crypt, looking around for the large oak that usually stands as a proud marker of the gate. She's confused when the tree she finds is barely more than a sapling, but it's placement and shape - it's the same oak.

"What the hell?" Bonnie mutters to herself. She stares incredulously. The tree had to be at least 10 years younger than what she's used to seeing.

Cautiously, Bonnie makes her way through the woods back to the main road. It's eerily quiet; cars are parked, but none are moving. She tries knocking on several doors, even tries the doors a few times and peers into the windows. No one appears to be home, not in _any_ of the houses she tries. A feeling of dread colonizes her gut. She wonders if there's some big event that everyone's run off to, but the lack of traffic and noise makes her doubt.

The former witch wanders into the downtown shopping strip and is surprised to find that all of the stores and restaurants are empty. She's also surprised to find that the place where her favorite boutique usually stands is an old Italian restaurant she remembered from her youth that had sold awful alfredo; the restaurant closed down because of bad business when she was four. The sense of dread that had settled in Bonnie's stomach suddenly grows, mutates, sprouts horns.

Right as Bonnie is gawking, the sky suddenly dims. Hand shielding her eyes, Bonnie looks up to take note of the completely blocked out sun.

"Okay, what the fuck?" Bonnie screeches out loud. The eclipse is pretty short, only lasting a few minutes, but Bonnie still squints up in disbelief before slowly looking back down. A newsstand catches her eye and she flounces over to check the headline.

The headline is something bizarre and uninteresting about mobile phones, but it's less that than the date that catches her attention.

 **May 10, 1994**

Bonnie's brows quirk and an astonished look crosses her features. A wave of hysteria passes over her. "Oh my god," she murmurs. "I time travelled."

* * *

Wood cracks in the fireplace, but it fails to pull Damon out of the far-away place his mind has gone. He can hear Elena sobbing upstairs, her sniffles interspersed with low cries of Bonnie's name. His hand around the bourbon filled tumbler tightens.

He hates himself.

He keeps thinking - he should have found a better way. Should have checked and double checked when he had gone through hell with Qetsiyah and the ancient doppelgangers, exactly what it was he was getting Bonnie into. He'd fought so hard to bring Bonnie back, to make sure she was alive again, only to have left her more fucked over in the end than she was as a ghost.

Maybe if he had done a better job of protecting the Bennett line, like he had promised, Bonnie wouldn't have died the first time. Maybe she wouldn't be so lost now.

The crystal cracks in his hand.

The flow of bourbon dampening his hand finally calls his attention and Damon goes to grab a towel. His mind is made up. He may be the scummiest person he knows, but Bonnie isn't. He'll save her, bring her back. Because she deserves it.

* * *

The lights finally dim in the last window, but it takes him almost two hours before he moves from his perch in the tree just across the backyard. The late spring night is warmer in Virginia than in Portland and Kai would be less remiss of it had the incessant pull in his gut not resulted in such lurid discovery. The call to travel had never rattled him so harshly as it had three days ago - the feeling was violent and sickening. Kai thinks it might be how birds and crabs and bugs feel when they migrate, like the very earth was trying to jerk them about by the bowels.

Nearly three thousand miles later, he finds himself breaking into a quaint cottage style home in the middle of Mystic Falls, Virginia. The familiarity had caused recognition to light up his neurons with a name when he first drove past the city welcome sign. Sheila Bennett. The prolific surname of an old, powerful line of witches and the first name of the single witch responsible for throwing away the key on his particular jail cell.

Wandering around the small town, he had pondered what it was that called him here, what he missed his first few trips there, if some sort of shift had occurred outside of his prison world that turned the place into a beacon within it.

Perhaps Sheila had come to rectify things and the thought made Kai smile almost gleefully.

It's when he's wandering around the small grocery store looking for pork rinds when he heard footsteps echoing down the aisles. He'd fell immediately into paranoia and shifted subconsciously to a predatory gait, quietly making his way towards the sound and quickly hiding himself behind a crate of boxes when they started to head in his direction. That feeling, the flighty, scuttling, twitching feeling returned and settled warm in his lower belly and groin. The earth was pulling him by his very balls.

He watched between the gaps of the boxes as a young woman makes her way down the aisle, a small hand basket hanging from her arm as she grabbed a box of hot chocolate mix and turned away. The vision of her made the feeling rage. Go, it cried. Follow. Kai waited until the sounds of her footfalls faded and then headed down the direction she went, his heart tight behind his ribcage.

From a distance, he followed her around town that day and the next, trying to discern a pattern to her movements and habits. She mostly stuck around residential areas, travelling between a few houses that must have been familiar to her. Investigating, for the most part. She seemed particularly entranced by the eclipse.

This was the first move he's made to breach her space.

Now, sheets rustle softly as she turns over in the bed behind him and Kai throws a casual look over his shoulder, pausing in his perusal of her dresser top. He hadn't broached her yet, choosing to investigate her room while he was still trying to digest that there was someone else less than two yards away.

Carefully, he makes his way over to her side, keeping his tread light and quiet. He leans down, peering at her, the first person he's seen in nearly two decades. Her up close visage is glorious to him. A lone finger drags along the sheets covering her form, sliding up and up until it brushes against the bare skin of her neck. He knows when he reaches out for it, the instinctive way he always has, he just knows what will happen. But the muted rush of magic that hits him still makes his hand jolt back an inch and causes him to look down at her face in surprise.

The girl - he's sure she's a Bennett. She has magic that, even dulled and stifled, has the same trademark burning sensation he'd felt from the one time he'd been able to get close to Sheila and Abby Bennett during one of the former's consultations. But she's no Bennett he recognizes. She looks vaguely like Abby, but far prettier, her heart-shaped face relaxed in soft, sensual curve contrasted by the sharp frame of her short hair. The toffee skin that protected the flesh and power residing within it was supple with youth.

She shifts again, brushing his hand off and rolls over so that her back is facing him. She is still asleep, undisturbed from her slumber by his light probing. Leaning down until the tip of his nose just barely brushed her cheek, Kai breathes in her scent - like almond cookies and honeyed tea - and revels in the first rush of living, human magic he's felt in long time. It's been buried somehow, but just the slightest taste of it has Kai's mind swimming with machinations. He closes his eyes and relishes the tingle that travels through his body, exciting him out of the apathy that monotony has nurtured.

He pulls away and gazes down at the sleeping young woman. His voice, low and curious, whispers out for the first time in a few years.

"Just who are you, little girl?"

* * *

"How are you settling in?" Elena inquires into the phone.

"Fine," Alaric replies. He pauses. "I compelled myself Sheila Bennett's old job, they haven't been able to find a replacement." He scoffs. "Seems stupid, but I feel like it's the least I could do, you know?"

Elena stills momentarily, fighting back the stinging in her eyes with a scowl. She pulls herself together and briskly states, "Don't forget to check on Jeremy for me."

"Elena -"

"I have to go," the younger vampire interjects. She hangs up quickly and heads to the restroom.

Her reflection mocks her and Elena has to fight back the surge of fury lest she shatter the mirror. Instead, she fills a sink with water and dunks her face into the cool liquid for a few minutes. She wishes for moment that she was still human and could feel the burning of lungs denied air. That the pain in her chest could hurt for a reason that could be treated. Rising, she pats her face dry, drains the sink. Takes a breath.

She's been a god awful shit of a friend, but she's going to do better. Be better. She'll do what Bonnie would do; she'll help people and she'll actually _do_ something instead of just saying she will. She'll be the hero for Bonnie. It's the only way Elena will be able to move on.

She goes and clocks in for her volunteer shift.

-o0o-

Elena sees Jeremy and Alaric in the waiting room and she nearly becomes human again she's so jarred. She rushes over.

"What the hell?" she shrills. Jeremy winces when her voice pitches. Alaric chuckles.

"Someone partied a little too hard, so I came to see if he could get checked out."

"Partying?" Elena turns narrow, accusing eyes on her brother. "Why would yo-"

"Elena?" A voice cuts in. The collegiate turns around and sees Dr. Laughlin.

"Jo," she greets. "Hey."

"What's up? Is your shift over all ready?"

"No, no," Elena gestures at the two men behind her. "I saw my brother, got concerned." Jo comes closer.

"What's wrong?" the physician asked. Elena opens her mouth, then closes it, realizing she doesn't know exactly why Alaric brought Jeremy in. She shrugs and turns back to Alaric, a questioning look on her face.

"He's been drinking a lot. Now, he seems dehydrated - dizzy, vomiting, can't drink anything."

The doctor nods. "Okay," she gets a nurse's attention. "Go ahead and check this young man in. Get him a drip and 25 milligrams of promethazine," she instructs. The nurse nods and goes to guide Jeremy away.

"And what about this one?" Jo faces Alaric. He smiles at her charmingly and stands.

"I'm just the D.D." he offers her a hand. "Alaric."

"Jo," the doctor grips his hand. The two remain there for a moment too long, gripping each other and staring. Elena stands nearby, awkwardly and wondering if this is how her PDA with Damon made others feel. She feels increasingly sorry for every kiss she's given him in front of others as she watches her former teacher and current overseer have a moment of...something.

"I'm going to get back to work," she announces and turns away. Elena is doubtful that they even heard her since she can hear the low, dulcet tones of horny flirting as she walks away.

* * *

He watches her every day for four months; he has nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, so getting to know his new prison mate from a distance seems like the most viable past time. Kai learns that her name is Bonnie and that she is disgustingly optimistic. Kai learns that Bonnie likes her coffee with pricey cinnamon-vanilla creamer, but no sugar. Kai learns that Bonnie talks in her sleep and the most common phrases she mutters are "No" and "I can do it" and "I'm sorry". Kai learns that her favorite flowers are daffodils because she always grabs a bundle from the floral section before she leaves the grocery store. Kai learns that Bonnie likes Janet Jackson and has a thing for Kevin Costner to the point that she will watch The Bodyguard on repeat a bajillion times in a row. Kai learns that Bonnie's best friends are named Caroline and Elena and that she has a boyfriend named Jeremy and he thinks that they all seem like shitty people.

Kai learns that she doesn't do well with the loneliness. Bonnie blasts music and the television when she tries to evoke her imprisoned magic, she talks to stuffed teddy bear she calls Miss Cuddles, and more often than not she will cry herself to sleep.

After Bonnie finds a recorder and starts keeping a video journal, he learns about her many adventures as witch (and is notably impressed), about how she dessicated an original vampire, brought someone back to life, killed an immortal witch and conquered Expression. Kai learns that Sheila Bennett is her grandmother and that she's dead and that Bonnie blames 'that asshole Damon' for it and that she secretly resents 'Stefan for giving a damn about a brother who wouldn't do the same'. Kai learns that Damon and Stefan are vampire brothers and he thinks that Bonnie must have some really convoluted feelings regarding Damon. He also thinks she's stupid for getting involved with vampires in the first place. He learns that she's died like three times and that Sheila was the one who sent her to his prison world in order to save her soul and give her yet another chance at life.

Mostly though, Kai learns that Bonnie Bennett is a sad, lonely, and pathetic little girl. And this gives him his opening to act.

* * *

Banging on the door jolts Caroline's attention away from the grimoire and textbooks in front of her and with an angry huff she gets up to answer the door. Her frown grows more pronounced when she sees the asshat standing on the porch.

"What?" she barks and crosses her arms. Damon smiles wryly and does his wild eyebrow thing.

"The sheriff around? I'm looking for a smart blonde."

Caroline gives him the sweetest smile she can muster. "She's not here. Why not do the smart thing and try the station - you know, the most logical place she would be on a Tuesday afternoon?"

She goes to slam the door, but Damon catches it with his foot before she could. His gaze is locked on something behind her.

"What?!" she snarls and tosses her hands up. "I don't have ti-"

"What is that? On the coffee table?"

"Why do you care?" she snaps.

"Is that one Bonnie's grimoire?"

"So what if it is?"

"Give it to me." Caroline looks at the dark-haired man and ponders the stupidity of her younger self for ever wanting him. He was trash.

"Go. Fuck. Yourself," this time she is successful in slamming the door in his face. She heads back to the couch and her notes and her endless determination to find her friend.

"I'm looking for Lucy Bennett," she hears Damon confess from the porch. "I got her name from Abby, but as far as anyone can tell, the woman's a ghost. Probably harder to find than Katherine." He sighs. "If you're looking for a way to save Bonnie, I want to help."

Caroline looks up from the papers spread out before her, gazes distantly across the room as she thinks about Bonnie's smile and her snark and her compassion and her odd, but cute fashion sense. Caroline feels like there's a rift she can't get past and knows the sensation won't dissipate until Bonnie Bennett is a person in this world again. Fingers tapping rapidly against the table, she rolls her eyes with a sigh and goes back to the front door.

Her sire looks up at her when she reappears, blue eyes clashing against bluer eyes. He smirks lightly and opens his mouth. Caroline interrupts before he can grate her ears with his voice.

"I call the shots, you hear? We do this together, but we do this the right way, the way Bonnie would want. No innocents get hurt. If we have to kill someone, they'd better earn it."

He grimaces, but nods. "I can work with that."

Caroline nods and braces herself for her next question. "Why do you want to?"

"What?"

"Why are you doing this?" Damon shrugs, obviously uncertain. He looks away from her intense gaze, then looks back. His eyes go wide and his eyebrows quirk. He looks insane.

"Does it matter? I want Bon-Bon back as much as you do."

"Yeah, but why? If it's so you can have her around to do magic for you again, then fuck right off - I'll stake myself before I let her go back to being treated that way again. I didn't stand up nearly enough for her before, but when she's back - never again."

The older vampire scowls. "That's not it," he snaps. She raises a questioning brow. "Look, I screwed her over okay? Making her the anchor…" he trails off.

"I just want to fix it, the way it should have been the first time," Damon finishes.

Caroline gazes steadily at him for a moment. She turns back inside, leaves the door open. "I'll call my mom, ask her if she can dig up anything on Lucy Bennett." The door shuts behind her and Damon claps his hands together.

"Alright, let's get cracking, Watson."

Caroline shoots him a dirty look and suppresses her shudder as she brings her cellphone to her ear. She decides to worry more about the breathy quality of her mom's voice when she answers than Damon's stupidity.

* * *

A routine develops over the next four months. Bonnie wakes up sometime around nine in the morning; first thing she does is go for a jog around the great, big, open world, then she comes back and showers. She heads down to her kitchen and makes a meal of French toast and chicken strips from her Grams' recipe book, working on a crossword while she eats. She tries not to mourn the loss of Google when she still can't solve 27 across. After brunch, she cracks open the grimoire, grabs some candles, and spends a few hours meditating, chanting, and fighting the urge to scream and punch something.

After that, she'll do yoga to calm the frustration thrumming through her. Then she'll read a real book or watch a movie or explore, then head to the grocery store to grab the ingredients for whatever dinner she decides to make that night after the sun starts to get a little too west-oriented. She'll come back and blast a CD, singing along until dinner is done. Then, like the crazy person she is slowly becoming, she has dinner with Miss Cuddles the way a little girl would have a tea party.

Now that she has the camera, she makes video journals, reciting her day or days before the world of Goundhog Day Galore. She cleans up, watches The Bodyguard, goes to bed, and if she cries a little, it's not like anyone else will know. She goes to sleep and wakes up to do it all again the next day.

Today, however is weird, and she immediately goes on the defensive.

The crossword is moved. Usually she drops it, folded, on the corner of the table, pen tucked into the fold, but today she finds it spread open on the kitchen counter, the pen thrown haphazardly on top of the newspaper. She goes over and looks down and immediately finds that 27 across has been solved.

Y-E-L-L-O-W-L-E-D-B-E-T-T-E-R

A thud sounds overhead, and Bonnie looks up with a small gasp. Heart racing, she goes over to the knife block and grabs the sharp meat cleaver she sliced her finger on when she made steak fajitas. The young witch makes her way upstairs with caution.

A flush of anxiety overcomes her body when she can hear the shower running in her Gram's bedroom. Her heart pounds and her hands feel clammy around the handle of the cleaver. There is someone in her house.

Oh god, she thinks, there's someone in my house!

A flood of excitement fills her, followed quickly by dread. She has no idea who this person is or how they could act. They might be dangerous.

The person starts whistling a familiar tune, but Bonnie can't quite place it until she hears a low male voice start to sing out.

" _Give me a word, give me a sign. Show me where to look, tell me what will I find? What will I find?_ "

As silently as possible, Bonnie pushes open the bathroom door. Her heart pounds. Should she do this? The other person might have thought he was as alone as she did when he broke in. But again, what if he was dangerous? She may be pulling a _Psycho_ , but at least she would have the upper hand.

" _Lay me on the ground, or fly me in the sky. Show me where to look, tell me what will I find? What will I find?_ "

He could also be a decent person, she argues with herself. Bonnie hesitates for a moment longer, before making her decision.

" _Whoa, heaven let your light shine down._ "

She raises the cleaver and draws back the curtain.

* * *

The IV had revived him and whatever medicine Elena's doctor friend prescribed had done well in banishing his nausea. Jeremy manages to slip away from both Alaric and Elena after he checks out, the former being too busy flirting with the same lady doctor from before and the latter trying to bury herself under the work of a good Samaritan.

Fuck them both.

Jeremy's ride is a pretty girl with chocolate skin and light eyes. She's a little too tall and willowy, and her eyes are more blue-hazel than the dark, silvery green that Bonnie's are, but the resemblance is more than uncanny. He runs his fingertips along her thigh and the woman next to him shoots him a cute, little grin.

Pulling into a garage, the girl - Tamara, he thinks - parks and leads him to her apartment. As soon as the door closes behind them, Jeremy's mouth finds hers, his hands roaming her body.

This void - he needs to fill it. The apathy and disillusionment that accompany him when his anger dissipates are worse than the bereavement and the rage. He feels dead again, hasn't been able to shake the feeling since the Other Side collapsed and took Bonnie with it. Since she lied about it and subsequently broke his heart.

The rush of adrenaline and hormones he feels when he's drinking or fucking or fighting are the closest he's come to feeling alive. He divests Tamara of her clothing, kisses his way down her smooth chest, sucks a breast into his mouth. He closes his eyes, imagines her shorter. She even wears the same perfume as Bonnie, so it's easier to pretend.

Bonnie, he thinks as he pushes inside her.

Bonnie, he thinks as she rides him.

Bonnie, he thinks, Bonnie, Bonnie, and Bonnie again. Why did she have to go?

He comes. He feels empty once more.

* * *

It's kind of funny, he thinks as he sings, how much he's anticipated this moment. Kai waits for her to make her next move, does his best to keep the excitement from his voice, forces himself not to yell at her to just come on already. He's invested too much time into this little fantasy.

Bonnie Bennett pulls back the curtain on him, literally, lays him bare, literally, and he has to bite back the grin that wants to bloom on his face. Instead, he jumps back with a yell, away from the petite girl with the meat cleaver in her hand and grabs a shampoo bottle, aiming it at her while he tries to catch his breath. It looks like his only defense.

"What the _fuck_?!" he snarls, eyes wide and shampoo readied for attack.

She pauses, thrown off by his reaction and takes a step back. "Who are you?" she inquires cautiously.

Kai's heart beat quickens. This is the first time in eighteen years someone has spoken to him. He's only half-faking when he aims big, tearful eyes on her.

"Who the hell are _you?_ " he reiterates. He pushes himself more into the corner and lowers one hand to cover his crotch. The action has the intended effect. Bonnie takes another few steps back, embarrassed, and lowers the cleaver - her skin has a rosy hue. She looks up at the ceiling, but still keeps him in seeing range. Water from the running shower head dampens the floor.

"I asked first," she mutters. "And I'm the one with the knife."

"I asked second," he snaps. "And I'm the one who's naked and wet and being held hostage by a crazy girl with a knife."

She grimaces and concedes. "I'm Bonnie," she introduces herself. "I live here."

The man eyes her for a moment, allows her to conclude that he's nervous before he hesitantly offers his name.

"I'm Kai," he states. "Nice to meet you. I guess."

Kai allows himself to relax a little bit. He turns the shower off and slowly goes to step out of the tub. Bonnie takes another large step back. Her armed hand comes up slightly and Kai raises his own hands in a surrender position.

"I just want to get the towel," he comments. "Feeling kind of vulnerable."

"Yeah," she steps out into the bedroom. "I'll be -," she gestures behind her towards the bedroom.

"Yeah," he parrots and waits for her to leave. His eyes trace her form, and he shuts the bathroom door. His feet leave a wet trail from the puddle of water by the bathtub. Kai bites his lip.

Her voice is so much lovelier when it's directed at him and not the walls.

The siphon has spent so much time preparing for her, has reviewed his story and his schemes for her and planned this moment over and over again. He also spent a lot of time checking himself out recently, made sure he was still something worth looking at. Eighteen years of not aging and living for rushes of adrenaline just to make him feel normal have kept him pretty fit. He had been kind of nervous that he had lost his touch.

Based on the blush she sported, Kai thinks he left an impression on Bonnie.

He dries off and gets dressed, cleaning up the bathroom. When he opens the door, the other witch is gone, but he can hear her tinkering about in the kitchen, so he heads in that direction.

A plate of cookies sits on the countertop and Bonnie is stirring a pitcher of iced tea. She offers him a chagrined smile when he sees that he's joined her.

"Hey," she greets. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have -"

Kai shakes his head vigorously, smiling charmingly at her. "Don't sorry about it," he soothes. "I probably would have done the same. This place makes you crazy."

She nods. Bites her lip contemplatively. Kai can see her fighting with herself on how to proceed.

"How about we start over?" he offers. "Kai Parker, nice to meet you. You're actually the first person I've seen in eighteen years." He offers his right hand for her to shake. He doesn't want to offend her after all.

Bonnie eyes widen at the shared information and she hesitates for a moment. But it is a fleeting moment, because Bonnie is lonely and Kai is the first person she's seen in four months and he appears to be friendly and as lonely as she is.

It's half true.

She takes the offered extremity. Her hand is tiny and warm and slots perfectly into his larger one. Her grip is firm and he squeezes back ever-so-slightly, reveling in the contact.

"Bonnie Bennett," she supplies. "I've been here for four months and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

* * *

 **Lust: Everyone has their desires. || Chastity: Not everyone holds them back**


	2. Gula et Temperentia I

" **Great American Road Trip Part 1"**

 _So we all go back to yours and you sit and talk to me on the floor_

 _There's no need to show me round baby, I feel like I've been in here before_

 _I've been wondering whether later when you tell everybody to go,_

 _Will you pour me one for the road?_

 _I knew this would be on the cards_

 _I knew you wouldn't fold_

 _I saw this coming from the start_

 _The shake, rattle and roll_

 _\- Arctic Monkeys; One For the Road_

* * *

He's funny, Bonnie thinks to herself as giggles wrack her frame. Kai is finishing an anecdote about how he had once gotten an unfortunate wedgie while rock climbing in their empty, little world and had to awkwardly remove his pants in order to get out of the situation. His animated retelling is so ridiculous it must be exaggerated.

The whole tea and cookies with the only other person on Earth thing turned out to be more fun than she had anticipated, especially since Kai didn't really hold her actions against her. Bonnie's surprised by his own calm acceptance of the situation, but the man assures her that he's freaking out in his own way.

It's weird, how easy camaraderie grows between them. It's almost like being reunited with an old friend who still knows you better than anyone else.

Kai's smile dims and a thoughtful expression overtakes his face. The sudden somberness draws Bonnie's attention and soon enough her own bemusement dies out.

"Kai?"

"Your last name...you're a witch, aren't you?"

The impromptu comment flusters Bonnie and her first instinct is to lie; luckily when she does open her mouth to speak, her mind has already caught up to her lips.

"Yes."

It's not really an admission, logically speaking. Kai has spent the last eighteen years, apparently frozen in age, in a world with a population of one - two now, she corrects herself - that magically repeats the same day. The fact that he was the one to bring up witchcraft indicates his own knowledge of the supernatural. Still, mistrust is hard to shake, especially of those who latch onto her surname, and so Bonnie watches him closely as he digests her confession.

"Me too," he confides quietly, then smiles bitterly. "Sort of."

Brow crinkled, Bonnie shakes her head. "I don't - how can you only be sort of a witch?"

It's Kai's turn to watch her. "I'm a siphon," he says the word like it was cursed. "And I was born into the leading family of one of the oldest, most powerful covens in the world."

Bonnie is confused by the term, but before she can ask him to clarify, he scoffs.

"I was supposed to lead, after my Dad, you know? But then I turned out to be what I am and he pretty much turned his back on me after that. Deep hatred for siphons in the Gemini coven, like racism or homophobia. He treated me like crap for twenty-two years and eventually just discarded me." Something bitter flicks over his face before it smooths out.

"He discarded you?" Bonnie asks, incredulous.

"Yup," he pops the the P. "Dumped me here and left me to rot when I came of age." He shakes his head.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie. I don't know why I'm telling you this, it's pretty much ancient history. I shouldn't burden you with this when we've just met."

"No, it's okay," she smiles sympathetically. "I get it. I've been discarded before, too."

"You?" Kai snorts. "I find that hard to believe. You're a Bennett. And you're beautiful."

He says it so bluntly and casually, like he really can't comprehend that she would ever be able to understand what it feels like to be a misfit. That she would be able to sympathize with being the one tossed aside and forgotten like so much trash. Bonnie frowns at him, rebellious.

"It's true," she snaps. "I've been essentially orphaned and left to figure out how to be a witch all on my own. My boyfriend once cheated on me with his ex who was dead. My friends are literally all I have, but sometimes I feel they overlook me in favor of my powers. Like I'm some magical fix-it whenever we have a problem."

Her tone had become increasingly bitter and the words flow out, unstoppable, but once her tirade is over, Bonnie is overcome with embarrassment and chagrin. She wants to take back everything - not only did it make her seem pathetic, but also like she was competing with him to be the more pitiable soul. Ugh. That wasn't her intention in the slightest and Bonnie closes her eyes, biting her lip as she tries to hold back her self-disgust.

Kai chuckles lightly. "Haha, okay. You win."

"No."

He looks up at the steel in her voice.

"No," she repeats, softening her tone. "I wasn't - I just wanted you to know that I could sympathize. It wasn't supposed to come out like that."

Her companion nods. "I understand, Bonnie. Thanks." Silence draws out between them for a bit, surprisingly comfortable before he interjects into the quiet again.

"How'd did you get here? I mean, I know my dad made this place as a prison for me so I couldn't become leader, but somehow I doubt he did that to you too. You don't seem like the type to put up with his shit."

Bonnie smiles at the teasing compliment. "I died," she said quietly, looking down at the counter. She draws patterns over it's surface, not meeting his eyes as she continues. "I'd died before, but this time, it seemed like the absolute end. Grams sent me here."

"Grams?"

"My grandmother. Sheila Bennett. Did you know her?"

The witch finally looks up to meet his gaze and is taken aback. Kai is staring at her in a mix of anger and disbelief, eyes blazing with something like betrayal. "Wha-?" Bonnie starts, but is interrupted.

"Sheila Bennett is your grandmother?" he snarls. Bonnie's hackles rise at his aggression and she pulls back slightly.

"Yes?" she ventures. "Why are you so upset?"

Kai scoffs and suddenly spins around, his back to her. He rakes his fingers through his dark hair. "Sheila Bennett is a traitor. I thought she was my friend, but in the end, all she was doing was helping my dad create this place to imprison me."

* * *

Elena arrives at the boardinghouse at the same time as Caroline and a smile lights up her face at the sight of the other vampire. She feels like she hasn't seen her childhood friend in so long, like the fall of the other side had taken two of her sisters instead of just one. The sight of the beautiful, flaxen-haired girl sends a jolt of relief and joy through her.

"Hey," the brunette greets, doe-eyes soft as she looks over the other girl in concern.

"Hey," Caroline greets back absently. Elena tries not to take it personally as she continues the conversation.

"Date with Stefan?"

Caroline makes a face. "I wish. The other one actually."

"Oh. Okay." The doppelganger feels a bit off-kilter about the situation. For the last four months, since Bonnie went away, Damon and Caroline had been obsessively working to find a way to bring her back.

So far, every avenue taken had turned out to be a dead end, but the duo were probably the most stubborn team to ever tackle something. It was about two weeks from Thanksgiving, and instead of giving into her usual end-of-the-year holiday cheer, Caroline had only passively participated in activities, preferring to leave parties and preparations early in favor of researching and traveling with Damon. The older vampire too, had been less spunky than his usual self, having returned to the behavior he had taken up when Stefan had gone Ripper with Klaus. The only difference now is that he didn't bother trying to hide his somberness and frustration when it came to dealings concerning Bonnie.

Hesitantly, Elena asks "How's that going lately?"

Caroline's face darkens as the two enter the den and Elena regrets asking. Damon is sitting cross-legged by the fireplace, drinking his ever-present bourbon as he pours over papers about dimensional traveling that an occult professor from Oregon had faxed him right before Elena left for classes. It looks like he had made a significant dent in the reading if the amount of dead highlighters in the waste bin next to him meant anything.

The blonde vampire strides over to him without hesitation, and Elena has to take pause as she watches Caroline immediately ask Damon what he's learned. So preoccupied, she doesn't notice when Stefan comes up behind her until he's leaning in the wide door frame opposite of her.

"A bit disconcerting isn't it?" he asks her, eyeing the sire and progeny as they talk pros and cons about trying to locate Bonnie in another dimension, or even how they would go about being able to do such a thing. Elena smiles wryly.

"You're telling me," she sighs. "Is it bad to wish that they would move on? Bonnie said that Grams found a way to help her find peace - what if they do manage to bring her back and it's not even what Bonnie would have wanted? What if Bonnie's in heaven, or being reincarnated as an incredibly wealthy princess, or in the Fields of Elysium? What then?"

Stefan looks over his ex thoughtfully. "Given this a lot of thought?" he asks teasingly.

"Is it obvious?" Elena smiles wistfully. "I just don't want all this to have been in vain. I want Bonnie back too, but - she's died for us so many times already. Maybe it's better to just let her rest and try to do better for her instead of bringing her back to a place that's only hurt her."

"That's a rather wise thought," Stefan admits. Elena tries not to take offense or wonder insecurely if he's surprised by her reasoning. "How's it working out?"

"It hurts. I know they both think I'm being selfish by doing nothing, but this time, I swear, my head's not up my own ass."

Stefan snorts at the crass statement and they share a friendly, bemused look. The look lingers a little too long, softening to something that would be inappropriate between them now and the two turn away from each other. The older vampire eyes his sibling and his current girlfriend as they tolerate each other for the sake of a girl they both miss too much to even try to function without. The two are so absorbed in their work that the conversation between the two doppelgangers hanging in the doorway went unheeded.

"Do you think they're being selfish?" Elena's voice interrupts his observations. "Or do you think they're right? I know you help them out sometimes so that they can take breaks. I know you're worried about them too."

Stefan sighs. "I think they need to work out their grief and that they can only do that if they try to fix the situation. I think Caroline still cries herself to sleep at night looking over old pictures of the three of you. I think Damon has nightmares because he was the last one to be with Bonnie when she crossed over and it haunts him."

"He loves her," Elena blurts and the younger Salvatore turns to her, surprised. The doe-eyed beauty looks down in embarrassment. "Bonnie. I don't think he even knows that he does, or even how he does. But Damon loves her, and I think it hurts him because they never really got to work it out, even if he'd never admit it or let himself realize it."

"Elena -," Stefan starts. She smiles ruefully.

"It used to bug me. Still does, when I'm here and he still can't let go. I've only been jealous of Bonnie about little things before, and now that I'm really upset with her, I kind of feel like scum, because I don't think she'd be jealous in my place. I think she'd be supportive of him. But I just feel -"

"Discarded." The brunette meets his gaze and nods. He always understands exactly what she means.

"Yeah. I feel discarded."

* * *

Surprisingly, he's sitting on the porch swing. Bonnie had expected not to see him again, after he'd stormed out after his accusation, but there he was - sitting on the porch swing, overlooking the street like he was contemplating finding a jack hammer just to ruin it. She tries not to let the relief that washes over her be too obvious, but she can't fight back the small quirk of her lips when Kai glances her way. He grins back apologetically, looking down at his feet when she comes over. He scoots to one side of the swing, leaving her room to sit down on the other end.

"I was scared you'd left," she confesses. He tilts his head in her direction, just slightly, to peer at her from under his lashes.

"I was scared you'd want me to leave," he murmurs back. She meets his gaze and they grin at each other.

"Maybe third time's the charm?" she suggests and holds out her right hand. "Bonnie Bennett, dead thrice over. I'm here now because my equally dead grandmother spirited me here with witchcraft the last time I died so that my soul wouldn't get destroyed."

Kai smirks to himself, eyes blinking down as he looks down again. For a minute, Bonnie is worried he won't play along, but then he suddenly turns his whole body towards her and grasps her hand in his. "Kai Parker, magic siphoner and outcast of the Gemini Coven. I'm here now because my dad hated my very existence, but was too cowardly to just outright kill me, so he banished me to a world of isolation."

He turns her hand over so that her palm was facing down and brushes his lips over knuckles. Her skin burns where his lips brush and Bonnie ignores the fluttering sensation in her belly that the action induces.

"I do believe you're right. Third times are quite charming, my darling," he says in mock British accent. The silliness and light-heartedness with which he suddenly exudes causes Bonnie to chuckle lightly. She bows her head over their joined hands and leans her body in slight curtsey.

"Indeed they are, my dear," she replies in her most charming old Hollywood voice.

The two of them burst into giggles and he lets her hand go to fold over on himself. Their laughter dies down and he leans back in the swing to gaze at her.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm kinda glad you died." She snorts.

"So long as you understand why I'm glad your dad hated you."

"Oh, darling, _I'm_ glad he hated me."

The two witches lean back together and rock the porch swing. Silence settles around them like warm blanket and Bonnie closes her eyes to relish it. She wonders if it's loneliness on both of their parts or something else entirely; she's never connected so well or so easily with someone, not even Elena.

"Is this your house?"

Bonnie opens her eyes to find Kai's face closer to her own than it had been before she closed them. Without her notice, he'd drifted closer on the swing and was leaning so that his forehead was scant inches from her own. She sits up to make distance, alarmed at how unalarmed she was by his proximity.

"It's my best friend's. Elena. My parents weren't often around when I was growing up, and so I would spend a lot of time here until my Grams had finished working for the day. I pretty much consider these walls home."

"Home," Kai repeats. He sits up suddenly, excitement dancing in his eyes. "Home. You're a Bennett witch and your grandmother helped create this world, meaning that a Bennett witch would probably be needed to leave it. I know where we can find the portal key for this world. If you're here, we can go home."

"Portal key?" Bonnie questions and Kai opens his mouth. Bonnie continues before he can speak. "But I don't have magic anymore. I was dead for a long time, then I was something that couldn't have magic. I didn't get it back and, trust me, I've tried to evoke it. I'm not a witch anymore."

Kai's mouth closes and he looks away contemplatively, biting his lip as he stews over an idea. He catches her eye resolutely and takes both of hands in his, sliding his palms until he clutches her wrists. Quizzically, she examines the way his fingers encircle her arm, then raises a brow.

"I want to try something," he murmurs. "I think your Grams wouldn't send you here if she didn't have faith you could leave right?"

Bonnie shrugs. "She sent me here to find peace. Maybe that doesn't include going back."

Kai looks down at her words and Bonnie's bleeding heart gives a pitiful thump at the flash of heartbreak that he tried to hide. The young woman had to bite back her sigh. Hope had slowly been dying for her the longer she went alone and without magic - now that she tries to imagine what Kai had felt on his own for nearly two decades and how he must feel now that she's here, Bonnie can't bring herself to kill his newfound hope as well. She wiggles her hands a bit.

"But maybe it does, she wasn't very clear. Go ahead and try your thing."

He studies her face again, checking for something. He must find it, because he nods his head slowly and gives her wrists a little squeeze.

"I'm going to try to siphon magic from you - if it's there, even blocked, I'll sense it. It's also probably going to hurt, okay?"

Bonnie nods. "I can take it," she nudges him slightly. "Go ahead."

He closes his eyes in concentration and for a long moment, there's nothing and Bonnie wants to scoff from the bitter disappointment. But then a sudden, sharp stinging hits her entire body and she gasps out in pain, doubling over. Kai immediately let's her go, soothingly patting her back instead, and Bonnie brings her arms in towards her body.

That was...not what she'd braced herself for. The pain, while different, was just as bad - almost worse - as being The Anchor when a spirit passed through. It was like being submerged into boiling hot salt water while covered in raw, open wounds. All her nerves felt frayed open and vulnerable.

She supposes that clears up her confusion about siphons.

"It's okay, I'm sorry. You'll be okay," Kai's still trying to calm her, a mildly panicked edge coming into his voice the longer she didn't respond.

Bonnie sits back up and takes a deep breath. Kai goes quiet.

"I guess I can see why your dad felt threatened." The siphon grins at her wry, teasing tone. "So," she continues. "Does that mean I have magic?"

"You have magic," he affirms. "We'll have to figure out how to unblock it, but it's there."

"And this portal key?"

"It's called an Ascendent. Looks like the guts of a clock. It's back home In Portland."

"Portland?"

"Yeah," he shrugs. "Gemini leader's house. My a-few-greats grandfather moved us out to Portland from Salem when he was leader."

Bonnie perks up at this admission. "Bennetts are from Salem, too."

Kai looks thoughtful. "Well," he stretches out the word. "We have to go to Portland for the Ascendent and we have to unblock your magic, so I suppose Massachusetts isn't a bad idea either," he trails off. Bonnie has an idea where he's going with this, but she waits to let him say it just in case.

"Say, Bennett darling," he speaks in his play British voice again, a brilliant smile lighting up his face. "What do you think about roadtripping across the Land of the Free?"

"Why, my dear," she replies. "I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

It was a bit disappointing to Kai how easy it was to convince Bonnie to join him, a strange man, on a road trip across America. He wonders idly if it speaks volumes of how desperate for company solitude has made her or if it speaks volumes on how wildly he misjudged her intellect. Granted, he was playing this little game of theirs with an advantage she was unaware he had, but still.

They have dinner together - a really hearty beef stew she makes from scratch - and Kai nearly cries at how wonderful it is to eat a home-cooked meal he didn't have to make himself. At some point, he'll have to show her how great eighteen years of practice will make you in the kitchen, but for now -

Fuck, it was great to just be served for once.

He reappraised her intelligence when, after dinner, she goes and packs up a few belongings and shows him to a guest room. Kai thinks he may have given her too much credit before, but then he notices her making her way out of the house.

"Where are you going?" he asks. She smiles.

"I've got to go make a few stops tonight before I can go anywhere. I'll be back in the morning, no worries."

And then she's gone, probably off to one of those other houses she liked to spend time in and Kai is left to his own devices. He briefly considers following her, but decides against it in favor of better exploring this house. It's not the same one he broke into nearly four months ago - Bonnie waffled between houses depending on her mood - but she spent a lot of time in this one, the Gilbert house, and the cottage style one he'd first watched her sleep in. That house had the taste of strong magic, so he figures it must have belonged to Sheila, considering Bonnie would have been a toddler in 1994 and not a practicing witch.

He never really explored this residence before, so he wanders around perusing the rooms. A girlish, princess themed room he concludes must belong to the ever mysterious Elena and a rocket-ship in space themed nursery don't hold his attention for long. He spends a while investigating a home office, digging up journals and files detailing information from something known as The Founder's Council. It was an interesting read - a lot of hullabaloo about vampires - and Kai finds himself intrigued by the secrets kept in the old, sleepy town.

He grows bored of digging around in there and makes his way down the hall to the master room. It's the room Bonnie's been sleeping in, even though she preferred to shower in the Jack-and-Jill bathroom upstairs for some reason. He goes through the walk-in and dressers, finding nothing of interest, so he turns his attention to the duffle sitting under the foot of the bed.

That proves to be more entertaining. For one, Bonnie has really cute taste in undergarments, something he never really paid attention to because he would always give her privacy during showers and changings. Kai holds up something that proves to be little more that a scrap of apple green lace, sliding it over his hand and contemplating all of the skin he can still see through the fabric.

How interesting.

For another, the bag yields the camcorder that he sets aside for later study in lieu of the grimoire that catches his eye. It's hidden, wrapped up in a sundress. Kai flips it open slowly, sees the name _Emily Bennett_ emblazoned onto the inside cover. He blinks.

Well damn; he didn't expect to find a legendary Bennett's spellbook.

Carefully, Kai looks through the grimoire, reading through the spells. Emily was very organized - her grimoire read more like a textbook than a journal, with the front explaining the basics of spell casting,divination, and projecting while the back descended into different types of spells, each one more in-depth and dangerous than the last. If Emily's book was any average standard, it was no wonder Bennetts were considered magical savants.

A certain spell catches his eye. It's encoded, but from what he's garnered of Emily's alphabet so far, it seems like a spell that could be used to create another dimension. He begins trying to translate the alphabet into Latin and grows more excited as he slowly makes headway through the spell.

He manages a rough translation about an hour later and Kai is certain this is the spell. He stares at the pages a few moments longer, burning the words into his mind's eye and then double checking that he has it memorized. Once he's done, Kai repacks the duffle bag perfectly, careful to leave no trace of himself as he swipes up the camera and lies down on the bed.

The siphon falls asleep watching Bonnie reminiscence and theorize. He's glad she didn't prove his original conclusion wrong - girl was smart as a whip.

-o0o-

The next morning, Kai's up before the sun, rearranging everything back to the way he found it, before going to the kitchen to scrounge up breakfast. He settles on toast and cereal, not really in the mood to cook anything. Lethargically, he chews his way through Lucky Charms and waits for Bonnie to show up.

She shows up around eight with a large knapsack and a smile, joining him at the table and pouring her own bowl of something magically delicious. After she finished eating, they clamber into Kai's car with their (hers really) stuff and he takes I-95 north towards Richmond. Bonnie frowns every time he blows through a red light, but says nothing. Instead, she digs through his CDs and, to his delight, she settles on Pearl Jam. They sing through the songs together, but she skips _Jeremy_ and Kai bites back a snicker. About thirty minutes from D.C., Kai finally speaks up to start their first real conversation of the day.

"You hungry? It'll be lunch time soon."

Bonnie smirks lightly and lolls her head in his direction him.

"Yeah, let's hit up a Micky D's drive thru. I'm craving fries."

He shoves her playfully. "Ever been to the Smithsonian?"

"On a school trip once. Why?"

"I want dinosaurs."

"You want to eat dinosaurs?"

This time he tickles her. "No, I want to eat a burger. I want to _climb_ a dinosaur."

Bonnie wiggles out of his grasp and grabs his his hand, holding it down over the stick. He shifts gears with her hand covering his. She pulls away.

"We can do that, can't we?" she mutters musingly.

"We can do whatever, Bon. No people equals no rules."

She's quiet for a minute. Kai knows she just needs a little push, a small nudge to get over the good girl spirit that holds her back even now.

"Come on," he goads. "If we're going to trek across the country, we might as well do it better than anyone else ever did."

She bites her lip, looking uncertain. "If we're going to turn this into a thing, shouldn't we have more stops?"

"We can stop anywhere. No one's gonna stop us."

After some thought, she shrugs. "Why the hell not?"

Kai beams at her wickedly. "That's the spirit!"

* * *

The call comes in while Caroline is studying for organic chemistry. It's the first real break she's taken from her rescue mission in a while, and it's only because she doesn't want to waste time by flunking the class.

The caller ID says it's Elena and, with an eye roll, she let's it ring. She and the brunette had been at odds for a while now, the other girl's blasé attitude when it came to saving Bonnie irritating the blonde. The phone stops ringing, but then starts up again a moment later.

With a soft sigh, Caroline answers.

"Yes?" she mutters non-committedly.

"Care! Thank God," at Elena's distraught tone, Caroline sits up straighter, IUPAC rules forgotten. "You need to come to the hospital, it's your mom. She collapsed an-"

"On my way," Caroline cuts her off. She's already got her keys in hand and is pulling on her jacket. She hangs up without saying goodbye and slips her phone in her pocket, mind already in a chaotic rut as she vamp speeds to her car.

-o0o-

Stage four cancer. Caroline doesn't know if she should berate her mom for keeping it a secret for so long or berate herself for not trusting her instinct every time her mom brushed off her concerns. The tall girl looks over her sleeping mother, feeling overwhelmingly underwhelmed.

She's just numb.

First Bonnie, and the longer she goes failing to find a solution to that, the more she can sense herself cracking at the seams. And now Liz. Caroline's brain is already pumping out theory after theory on how she can save the older blonde, but some dark corner of her soul is whispering to her that she'll screw that up too.

Elbows on her knees, Caroline cradles her head in her hands and tries to will herself to cry. To do _something_ to let out the frustration threatening to choke her.

My mom is dying, she thinks. My best friend is dead. My other best friend is letting me pull away.

She can't tell if she's wallowing or not. Is this grief? Is she ready to give up? Caroline doesn't know, and that in itself should be worrisome, except she. Can't. _Feel._ Anything.

Overwhelmingly underwhelmed.

Fuck.

Stefan slinks into the room and it's a peripheral observation for Caroline. She notices that he pulls up a chair next to her and runs a soothing hand along her back, but she doesn't acknowledge his inquiry about her emotional state. How could she?

She just sits and stares at her mother for a long, undisclosed amount of time, thinking. Then she kisses her forehead and leaves, Stefan looking after her in confusion.

* * *

They're back on I-95 north, heading towards New York City and full from the burgers that they made for each other while they were still in D.C. Bonnie is looking through her grimoire and humming along to Salt-N-Pepa's "Shoop" while Kai rapped along with Pepa.

" _Yo, Salt, I looked around, and I couldn't believe this. I swear, I stared, my niece my witness_ ," Kai's eyes got wide and he waggled his eyebrows when Bonnie grinned at his antics. " _The brother had it goin' on with somethin' kinda...uhhhh._ "

He exaggerates the moan at the end, lowering his voice and releasing the wheel for a brief second to hold his hands up as though he were indicating the size of something. Bonnie burst into laughter at the crude suggestion, to the point that she eventually chokes on spittle. The laughing fit morphs into a coughing fit and the younger witch tries to bring herself under control, tears shining in her eyes as she switches between grinning and trying to breath. Kai chuckles at her predicament.

More and more of his actual personality is starting to leak into the good guy persona he'd crafted especially for her, but Kai can't say he's too bothered by it. Usually, he would be able to hold onto the facade for much longer than the day they've spent together, but it's extremely easy for him to just be himself with her. Alarmingly easy really, and after the past four hours - the most fun he's had in a really long time - it's no wonder he's becoming far too relaxed with her.

Maybe it's because they'd spent hours running wild around the Smithsonian. Maybe it's because she went inside the caveman exhibit and pretended to be primordial with him. Maybe it's because she sat in that useless red airplane with him and pretended to be the ugly Wright brother because obviously Kai was going to be the handsome one. Maybe it's the fact that she climbed the T-Rex fossil with him, camcorder out as they sat on it's head, so she could record them. She said it was the closest they could come to a "selfie", whatever that was, but it was fun to see her finally relax and stop being so morose.

Bonnie sighs and pats her belly. "I'm sorry," she states. He looks at her from the corner of his eye with a slight smile.

"Why?"

"Well," she starts. "You fed me that amazing, gourmet burger, and I gave you something like cafeteria food."

He chortles. "What kind of amazing school cafeteria did you have?"

She smiles and looks down at the grimoire in her lap. It was open to the spell Kai had found last night, but she doesn't say anything about it. Her reticence makes Kai a little paranoid, despite his patience urging him to stay calm. Kai slowly accelerates the car in annoyance despite the already high speed he was driving, but keeps his voice light when he announces their next stop before Salem.

"Hey, let's go to New York,"

-o0o-

They spend the night at a motel and make it to the Big Apple in less than three hours the next day. Bonnie drives, impressing Kai that she knows how to drive a stick, and he picks the music. She hums along to _End of the Road_ with him once he chooses one of his Boyz II Men CDs, telling him intermittently about some of her adventures as a witch.

A lot of the stories are things he already knew, but he's surprised to find that she's met Jonas Martin, a witch a few years older than Kai and getting married the last time Kai had seen him. His reactions to learning about Greta and Luka Martin are in no way faked - it's a blow to realize just how the world has moved on and forgotten all about Malachai Parker. His hunger for power rumbles when she confesses to coming into possession of the Martin grimoires upon the family's extinction.

New York City itself turns out to be more fun than the Smithsonian museums, especially when they settle on playing tag on the Empire State Building and shooting each other with the Super Soakers Kai stole from a toy store. Bonnie, Kai learns, is competitive to the point of aggression, and for the first time ever, he finds himself likely to lose if he doesn't step his game up. He rigs the plumbing so that the sinks spray water whenever they're used, but she gets back at him by setting off the fire sprinklers and making her way outside to the top balcony, where she quickly dries off in the warm wind.

By the time Kai joins her, he's soaked to the bone and a bit disgruntled, especially when he sees her dry clothes and only slightly damp hair. He half-heartedly shoots her with his water gun to tag her when Bonnie crows in victory. He has to give it to her though - he's never lost any game in his life to anyone that wasn't named Joshua Parker. Bonnie is pretty much joining a hall of fame.

They chase each other around for another ten minutes, shooting at each other and laughing every time their hits connected, until their guns were empty. Kai, who's _still_ dripping out his own puddles, decides to just fuck everything - tossing his water gun aside he dashes at and tackles Bonnie.

"No!" she laughs out when he tucks her underneath him and straddles her. The petite girl shoves at his chest, trying to get him off, but he bats her hands away and yanks off his water-logged shirt and holds it over her head. A few drops spatter menacingly around her head.

"Say mercy," he commands.

"Never!" Bonnie wiggles harder, upping her efforts to try to get away. Kai ignores the quick thought that he now knows what kind of panties she likes to wear in favor of wringing out his soaked tee right onto her face. Her expression becomes scrunched and sour when the water hits her and Kai gets wracked with laughter from the sight. He's kneeled over her, on hands and knees, silent chuckles shaking his frame when he notices how quiet she's gotten. Catching his breath, he peers down at the younger witch.

He's awestruck.

Short, damp hair spread out like a halo, brown skin glistening with sweat and water under the sun, lips pink and lush and parted. And her eyes - verdant orbs peer up at him through dark, water-clumped lashes and Kai finally takes note that he's half naked and kneeling over her in rather suggestive position. The provocation to do something teases him. It would be so easy right now, for him to lean down and seal his lips over hers.

Kai knows that if he did, Bonnie wouldn't stop him.

But he doesn't. Instead he rolls off and helps her up.

"I guess it's a tie then?"

"If telling yourself that makes you feel better," she responds quickly and Kai clucks indignantly at her sass. Bonnie's pulled herself together well, and there's no lingering awkwardness on her part, which kind of bothers Kai. _He's_ the one playing a game, therefore he shouldn't be so rattled. But he is.

He turns away and breezily tells her that he's going to go change and grab some food and that he'll meet her at the car in a half-hour. Agreeing to the plan, Bonnie goes her own way once they're out of the building and by the time they meet up again, she's changed into a short black dress covered in white and yellow daisies. Kai hands her a meatball sub and tries to ignore how nice her legs look every time she crosses and uncrosses them.

* * *

Heat sluices through him, building up and up as he pushes into the pliant body below him. Greedy hands reach up to grip his hair, pulling his mouth into a biting kiss and the young witch grips the hips in his hands tighter, tilting the other's body and eliciting booming noise.

All the stress, all the heavy burdens of his coven fade away to the background. Luke's needed this all week.

Keenan starts pushing against him more frantically, murmuring nonsense and begging Luke to fuck him harder. The blond nips at his lover's stubbled chin in reproach, before covering the older man's mouth. He pulls back slightly, thrusting his hips harder and he can feel Keenan's moans vibrating against his palm. The doctor is sweaty and tired, having some trouble keeping up with his younger companion who has kept him trapped in the bed for almost two hours.

Luke can't stop.

Frustrated, he pulls out and ducks his head, sucking Keenan into his mouth with a hard inhalation. The man keens at the sensation, and the taste of salt and cum assault Luke's taste.

"Luke, Luke, baby please. I can't..." the pleads trail off with a sharp cry when Luke shoves three fingers into his fucked open ass and curls the digits against his prostate. Keenan arches off the bed.

"Fuck! Luke, please!"

The witch pulls off of the man's dick with slurp, a trail of saliva hanging off the tip as he licks his way up Keenan's chest.

"Come on, baby, please," the doctor moans when Luke pushes his knees on his chest and shoves back inside of him.

Luke can feel a familiar pressure finally settle into his loins and the pace of his thrusts increase as he chases the feeling. Keenan wails, nearly crying from overwhelming sensation as he comes for the third time, twitching with aftershocks that pushes Luke down from the crescendo he's reached. Grunting, the blond grasps the rumpled sheets and empties into his boyfriend.

He pulls out and collapses next to Keenan, who takes a moment to gather his breath before kicking the blankets farther away from the overheated duo.

"What the hell was that?" Keenan finally bursts and Luke has to chuckle at the note of wonder in the man's voice. He shrugs.

"I just missed you, I guess."

"Miss me more often. I'll move to Alaska, make it easier for you," the older man jokes. Luke grins and wraps his arm around him, pulling him close. Keenan makes a mild sound of disgust when his cheek presses against Luke's sweaty chest, but he throws an arm around the blond's middle and settles in anyway.

The high of hormones is slowly leaking out of Luke, as the worrisome thoughts that had been plaguing him lately descend like vultures now that his distraction had come to an end.

His twenty-second birthday was coming up soon. In the past, Luke's birthdays used to be a cause for merriment, but now that this specific year was on the horizon, all he could feel was dread. By the end of winter, he wouldn't be a twin anymore. He wouldn't even be his own person anymore.

Keenan draws patterns on Luke's stomach and presses a kiss on his rib. Luke pulls him closer.

"I love you," Keenan murmurs.

All Luke can do is twine their fingers together.

* * *

Kai takes I-95 north again, even though it's not the quickest way to Salem, because he wants to travel along the coastline. For the duration of the ride the little bit of salt that is always in the air reminds Bonnie of the little day trips to Virginia Beach that Grams would take her on during the older Bennett's free weekends. Bonnie keeps the windows rolled down and breathes in the coastal air and tries not to freak out about the boy in the driver's seat.

She's concerned for herself.

Her friendship with Kai is...weird, to say the least. Moving way too fast for sure. After the night she'd spent in her Gram's place, she had resigned herself to making the best of this trip and to getting along with her travel companion, but perhaps they were getting on far too well - the easy banter and the light-hearted jabs and the way he just got her were causing her to be suspicious - it was far too much like when Shane took her under his wing. She tries to tell herself that Kai's just a nice, but unfortunate guy, but the other, more cynical part of her, that's so accustomed to being used and manipulated, tells her he's not to be trusted at all.

Bonnie doesn't know which side to listen to.

She watches her sole companion from the corner of her eye as he takes an exit towards a gas station.

"Need a break," Kai announces after he parks by a pump and exits. He stretches and his shirt rides up; he has a light sprinkling of dark hair that trail down below the band of his pants and Bonnie looks away quickly. She exits the car herself and does her own light stretch, her back to him so she's unaware that he watches her knowingly. She gestures at the store.

"I'm going to head inside," she informs him and heads off at his hum of acknowledgement.

Inside, she turns the pump on for him and hollers out to him that he can get some fuel. Then she grabs three plastic bags and fills one with a variety of snacks - making sure to grab a few bags of pork rinds because Kai was a disgusting human being and fruit so they don't die of scurvy - another with sodas and water and the last with some supplies they might need. Bonnie goes back to the front and peers out the glass doors. Kai's leaning against the front tire, hands in his pockets as he looks up at the sky.

Heart racing for unknown reasons, Bonnie leaves the bags of pilfered goods on the counter and goes to the unisex restroom. The washroom is simple and dated, but clean. She pees quickly and washes her hands, lingering a little on her reflection - washing her face to cool her reddened cheeks, fixing her eyeliner, adjusting her sundress, smoothing down her hair because ew, the frizz - before she stops herself in realization.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bonnie asks the mirror. Her reflection doesn't reply but it doesn't have to, the witch turning away it in revulsion at her epiphany.

Slut, she thinks to herself. Floozy. Tart. Skank. Harlot. You don't even _know_ him. Quickly, she unlatches the door and throws it open and rushes out - right into a hard chest.

"Woah," Kai grabs her shoulders as she stumbles back. "Where's the fire?" he jests.

Bonnie shrugs off his hands, looking down at the ground. "Nothing," she murmurs. "I just didn't want to keep you waiting."

She doesn't see Kai frown at her behavior, but she knows she needs to get away from him and his easy affection when he cups her chin to lift her head so he could meet her gaze.

"What's wrong?" he asks and Bonnie scowls at him, knocking his hand away from her face. His eyebrows raise at that, but he doesn't get mad - if anything, he looks more concerned and how dare he?

"Don't touch me," Bonnie knows she's being irrational - what's a grasped chin, when she's seen him naked ( _almost twice!_ ) and been straddled beneath him and watched him like a hungry wolf? What is it when she's known him less than a week, but feel like he's been around her whole life, when the two of them fit around each other like molding clay?

She knows she's being irrational, but Bonnie doesn't - can't - trust this feeling of rightness, of home and hearth and peace this stranger brings her.

So she glares up at him, tells herself the fluttering his height makes her feel is apprehension. Bonnie wishes she could look away, wishes she had her magic to erase this whole bad idea of a journey, when she sees the way he licks his lips and his eyes darken at her angry glower.

"Bonnie?" his low voice is almost imagined, it enters the quiet between them so gently.

Unbeknownst, they've drifted closer - her head is tilted back more and he looms over her, each of their eyes enthralled with the person in front of them. Bonnie can feel the heat of her anger transform, go from a blaze to a simmer, move from her neck and upper chest to places lower. Her breath catches. His jaw clenches.

Their lips collide.

The kiss is not what she expects (and she's somewhat repulsed with herself because how could she do that to Kai _and_ to Jeremy, as to have expectations in the first place?) because it's too hard, too rough, too hungry. One of Kai's arms slips around her waist, dragging her closer, while the other runs parallel to her spine, hand clasping the base of her neck and pulling her head back so he can plunder her mouth. Her own hands don't rest idle, having immediately wrapped around his shoulders the moment his mouth met hers, her digits tangling in his hair and gripping hard, yanking him closer.

He moves her back into the washroom. Bonnie's back hits the edge of the sink, but before she can think on what to do, Kai's hands run down her bottom and grasp the back of her thighs, lifting her onto the sink and stepping between her legs in one smooth motion. His lips never leave hers, even when she leans back against the mirror that stood witness to her sins. No, he doesn't depart - instead he follows the pull of her needy hands and the allure of her hungry mouth.

Kai grasps her chin again, this time not in concern, but in domination, tilting her head back as his tongue takes her own hostage. He invades her senses, his taste, his scent, his warmth, his sounds of satisfaction, and Bonnie has to close her eyes to shut out the sight of his ravenous determination to have her. His large, warm hand grips her neck, pushing her shoulders backwards onto the mirror. His mouth finally leaves hers to pepper against her collarbone and Bonnie can at last gasp for air, dizzy from the dissolution of reason. He's still hungry for her and it's apparent in the way his mouth latches onto the curve of her neck, the way he sucks at it possessively, the way his hips press against hers almost painfully so that she's trapped between him and the porcelain sink, literally between a rock and a hard place and with no way to run.

Her hands run up and down his arms, both to soothe and to aggravate, before she clutches him closer, head thrown back, neck open to his assault, pelvis perfectly aligned with his. Above them, the fluorescent light flickers, threatening to plunge them into darkness. She can feel the urgent press of his erection against the juncture of her thighs. Spirits, Bonnie wants this, _wants him_ , is so yearning for his touch, for his essence to be mingled with hers. She feels so warm and wanted, like someone took a torch and lit up her insides like a Halloween pumpkin, like she's done a huge spell that left her feeling like a live wire sparking in mineral water.

Her hands move, run down the front of his chest, his belly, grasps the waistband of his pants to draw him closer and Kai moans his approval into her neck, where his tongue laves a wicked pattern. The hand clamped around her neck runs a soothing thumb along her jawline, leaning her head to the side so he can suck bruises along the entire length of it. The other falls on a knee, squeezes it gently then pushing it away so that he can press against her even tighter. It runs up the outside of her thigh, under her black sundress and grasps the side of her black silk panties and tugs.

"Yes," Bonnie hisses. She arches up from the sink, giving him room to maneuver her underwear passed her ass. Her eyes open and she stares dazedly at the papered wall as Kai pulls down her panties and reaches for the moistened core it hid. His fingers brush against her clit in light circles and she jerks toward the sensation, the pattern on the wallpaper becoming sharper just before the light dies with a _pop!_ Her head clears. It dawns on her then, where she is and what she's doing and who she's doing it with, and when Kai turns her head back around kiss her again, he can taste the rationality that now flavors her lips.

He pulls his mouth away and looks at her. In the dim light from outside, his eyes are heavy and clouded, irises blown, and, like her, his breaths come out in heavy pants. Eyes perusing her face, Kai removes his hands from their places between her legs and around her neck, resting them on the sink in a bracket of her frame. His head hangs low as he hunches over, swaying once, twice and then pulling away from her to lean back on the wall beside her.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs. He hands her her panties and looks away when she pulls them up.

"It's not your fault," she replies. She gives him an awkward smile. "I'm going to go back to the car."

He nods and moves away to give her space to leave. When he doesn't follow after her, Bonnie looks at him questioningly.

"Go ahead," he shoots her a friendly smile. "I'll be out in a few minutes."

Bonnie utters a soft okay, and goes out to the car. She has to double back to grab the bags she left on the counter, but once she's inside the car, she wants to slap herself. Instead, she groans and drops her head into the palm of her hands.

How could she be so fucking _stupid_?

What happened in the restroom - the almost mindless rut - wasn't something Bonnie did. She was cautious and fickle with her body because she knew she couldn't separate emotion and sex the way Caroline and Elena could. So what the hell had that been? She didn't have feelings for Kai - she couldn't! She's only known him for going on about four days.

But it's a lie, she knows, or at least a twisted truth. Logically, Bonnie _shouldn't_ feel much of anything except tentative friendship towards Kai, but she _does_. The rush that filled her when they kissed wasn't friendly or mild or anything something so young should be.

She stays in that position for about five minutes before she starts to worry if her companion - or whatever he is now - is okay. Scoffing at herself, she makes the decision to forget about the fiasco and leans back to see if Kai is coming yet. She nearly jerks out of her skin when she sees him peering in at her curiously through the wind shield as he makes his way to the driver seat.

"You okay?" he questions. There is a deeper meaning to it, Bonnie knows, but she answers it shallowly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Are _you_ okay? You took forever."

He chuckles and starts the car, NWA filling the space between them with indignant curses. "Yeah, well, I had to take care of something," he responds.

Kai doesn't elaborate when Bonnie looks at him in confusion, but he does burst out in laughter when her expression clears in understanding. He takes the feeder road back to the freeway, the sounds of Ice Cube cussing out the police trailing out the open windows.

* * *

 **Gluttony: Appetites are hard to satisfy. || Temperance: Moderation is just a form of starvation.**


	3. Gula et Temperentia II

" **Great American Road Trip Part 2"**

 _So we all go back to yours and you sit and talk to me on the floor_

 _There's no need to show me round baby, I feel like I've been in here before_

 _I've been wondering whether later when you tell everybody to go,_

 _Will you pour me one for the road?_

 _I knew this would be on the cards_

 _I knew you wouldn't fold_

 _I saw this coming from the start_

 _The shake, rattle and roll_

 _\- Arctic Monkeys; One For the Road_

* * *

"We should take a plane to the west coast," Kai says as they unpack the car. When they'd reached Salem just past dusk, Bonnie had insisted on stopping and turning in for the night rather than partake in any adventure. He suspects she mostly just wants space away from him and rather than aggravate her, he caved in; it annoys him, how meek he has to be in order to fit the character he made for her in this game of theirs.

"A plane?" she asks, turning to actually look at him for the first time since they kissed.

He shrugs nonchalantly. "Yeah. I can fly."

Bonnie stares at him drolly. "You can fly?"

Kai stares back, then looks around quizzically. "Do you hear that echo?"

The younger witch scoffs and yanks her backpack on. "I'm not getting on a plane with an unlicensed pilot," she informs him tartly before stalking off.

Kai, incredulous and genuinely offended, shoots her retreating back a nasty look. "I've been flying for the past seventeen years just so you know! I'm more than qualified!" he yells after her.

Not deigning to reply, Bonnie disappears into the office to gather room keys. In the time it takes for him to grab his stuff from the trunk, she's already reappeared and is tossing a paddled key at him.

"I'm in room eighteen if you need anything," she states. She sounds tired and Kai almost forgives her for her earlier bitchiness. Poor girl must be exhausted, so caught up in her feelings the way she was.

"See you tomorrow," Bonnie dismisses briskly and then heads off to the other side of the building. He looks down at the key in his hand, a bright red 21 leering up at him. Studying the building, he purses his lips in annoyance. Brat. Not only did she put him on the other side of the building from her, she put him on the second floor.

Kai contemplates jamming his door just to spite her, wonders if she'll cave and let him room with her if he pouts at her pathetically enough. He doubts it; she hasn't slept in the same room as him since they met, so she'd probably just make him take another room. The siphon decides a shower is a higher priority than getting petty vengeance against the younger witch, so he trudges off to his designated sleeping quarters.

Later on, when it's so early it's still dark as pitch and his night owl tendencies strike him, Kai breaks into Bonnie's room and stands over her blanket-bundled form in contemplation. The sound of her soft breathing is steady and deep, giving no indication of her earlier aggravation.

If he kisses her now, he wonders, would she respond?

Kai mentally shakes himself; sneakily stolen kisses are not what he wants from her. He thinks about earlier, when he had her trapped between him and the sink, thinks about her demanding mouth and feels himself get hard, thinks about the way that rest stop light had died and feels himself get avaricious. With the barest of touches, Kai strokes the sleeping girl's hair behind her ear and lets himself taste the current of magic running through her. It's stronger than before, confirming his suspicions.

He thinks he knows now, what could bring her magic back. He just needs to be patient.

-o0o-

The next morning, Bonnie marches up to him with a blueberry muffin and a determined face while he's making his way to the car. She's armored in short coveralls and a lacy, red shirt, and Kai feels almost underdressed in her presence with his cargo shorts and hoodie combo. Coming before him, she takes a deep breath and opens her mouth before it slams shut again. She frets momentarily and Kai watches her with a raised brow, bemused.

Finally, she declares, "It's nice to meet you."

Kai narrows his eyes at her and she shuffles nervously under his glare. He knows what she's doing; he considers briefly if he really wants to let her do it.

"Am I that bad of a kisser?" he intones lowly, mostly to himself. She flushes and looks so anxious that Kai almost feels bad for her. He smirks and grants her mercy.

"Nice to meet you, too. I didn't catch your name, Miss -?"

"Bonnie," she answers in a soft sigh of relief. She hands him the muffin. "Since we're spending the day together, I wanted our first meeting to go well."

Taking the muffin, Kai's slight grin never wavers.

"Well, Bon, you certainly do seem nice. And I'd love to eat your muffin," he takes a hearty bite of the pastry, then gestures toward the car in a 'shall we?' move. He ignores the blush she sports and she says nothing to address his innuendo as they both climb inside the vehicle. They make their way to the wax museum.

Kai's not incredibly interested in going to the witch museum the way Bonnie is; he's been there a few times before on family vacations, where even his dad's assholery had dialed down enough to include Kai in the festivities. He likes the wax museum more. It's fairly new and the last time Kai was there with other people he had caught the flu and was too sick to do anything really fun. Surprisingly, it had been his dad who stayed behind at the hotel to look after him, although Kai suspects it was more because his dad wanted to make sure he wasn't faking it.

When the siphon and the Bennet show up to wax museum, Kai takes one look at the figurines and immediately turns to Bonnie with a smarmy grin and the suggestion of a friendly game of hide-n-seek on his lips. She looks at him oddly, as she often does to his childish suggestions, but she goes along by agreeing to be the seeker.

Such a good spirit.

The game lasts only about an hour, Kai turning out to be the champion because Bonnie doesn't like the creepy atmosphere he sets up. By the third time she returns to a room only to see the figures totally rearranged in unsettling ways, the Bennett calls out, exasperated, "Olly olly oxen free!"

She doesn't realize he's behind her and he relishes the shriek she lets loose when he jumps out at her. Her eyes widen and she throws her hand out, a useless _motus_ on her tongue. Kai collapses in a fit of giggles when it doesn't work and she hits him, glaring at the immature siphon.

"Your face," he gasps, still in hysterics. "Oh my god!"

Bonnie continues to glare at him, but her lip twitches at the corners. "Come on," she huffs. "I want to see the witch museum."

As she stalks off, Kai calls after her from the floor. "So that's a no on round two?"

Nevertheless, he picks himself up and trails after her, biting back laughter at the jittery way she looks over her shoulder at him, not trusting his innocent expressions now that she's more accommodated to his mischievous nature. He's really uninterested in the witch museum, already planning on showing her where the magic really is once she's sated on the tourist trap. Bonnie is insistent though, never having been to Salem, so while she goes around playing Scooby-Doo with display cases, Kai disappears into the gift shop to find some snacks and a way to kill time.

He's biting the head off of a marshmallow black cat when a pricey piece of jewelry behind a glass case catches his eye. It's a necklace; the chain is made of delicate gold links with a talisman of a raw cut green gemstone about the size of his thumb. The gemstone is cut roughly into the shape of a teardrop and a small gold flower - a daffodil - dangles from the same eyelet, resting on the stone. Kai immediately pictures the necklace sitting on the crest of Bonnie's sternum and the way the stone would reflect her eyes. Stepping closer, he reads the description offered: green moss agate and 24k gold. Explains the price, he mentally scoffs.

Unbidden, he recalls a lesson that agate is good for strengthening and harmonizing a witch's energy and that gold too is used for opening and restoring energy flow in the body. Almost mindlessly, Kai removes his jacket and uses it as a buffer when he smashes the glass with a heavy hand. Carefully, he brings out the necklace and lets it dangle from his fingers, fascinated by the way the light bounced off the stone. Instinctively, he tries to suck magic out of it, only to be brought up short when he gets zapped back.

" _Use moss agate with sage to reinforce the sage's purifying and protective qualities. Use it with medicinal herbs to reinforce healing. The gem alone is good for these tasks, but it's best use is in strengthening these aspects and enhancing a witch's natural abilities in general."_

The phantom echo of Joshua Parker's voice rings in his ear, the memory of his father sitting him in his lap and letting a young Kai play with the small crystals used for teaching. His dad had loved him then, he thinks, before his siphoning appeared and his dad kept trying to fuck another set of merge monkeys into his mother. Unknowingly, a wistful look appears on the not-so-young man's face and he pockets the necklace and pulls his hoodie back on, finishing off his black cat in two vicious bites. It's time to blow this popsicle stand and give Bonnie a real lesson in magic.

* * *

"Call me back when you get this, okay? I'm worried about you."

Stefan hangs up, concern for Caroline etched on his forehead. His friend has made no effort contact him, or anyone else if Damon's lonely continued search for a way to reanimate Bonnie was any indication. He sighs, continuing his walk towards the Mystic Grill. He needs to compel himself a drink, maybe a burger so he can try to relax for once.

He feels like he carries the weight of the world, the way his mind is constantly hounded with worry: for Caroline and her absenteeism, for Damon and his downward spiral, for Elena and her workaholic tendencies, for Jeremy and his over-partying, for himself and his constant anxiety. The only people who seem to be functioning like normal people, he thinks as he enters the restaurant, are Matt, Tyler, and -

Alaric's voice hits his ear, the professor chatting animatedly with someone who let's out a tinkling laugh when his story ends. Stefan turns to see his brother's old drinking buddy sitting across from a pretty woman with dark hair flowing down her back. Even from this distance, her blue sparkle in delight. With a smirk, Stefan walks up to the bar. Good for him, he thinks. Yeah. Alaric is functioning just fine.

Seeing the two of them together brings to mind a time where he also used to laugh and play with his own dark haired companion. Guiltily, he tries to shake the thought. Both he and Elena have moved on with their lives, while somehow managing to salvage a friendship from the mess of their breakup. She's with Damon now and he's...he checks his phone again. Nothing.

Seating himself, he looks for Matt, concluding the blonde mans must be off before ordering his drink and steakhouse burger. Stefan tries to dispel his thoughts, feeling mildly guilty about his frustration with Caroline. He just wants to talk to her, to be supportive of her endeavors, but she's freezing him out and it's starting to irk him more than usual. His food arrives and he tries to focus on that.

He's only a couple bites in when his phone dings. A notification for a picture text from an unknown number pops up and he opens it out of curiosity.

Stefan drops his food.

From his screen, an image of a smiling Sarah Salvatore - Nelson, he mentally chastised himself - beams up at him. The caption "she's a lovely girl, mate" catches his attention and his heart thuds in alarm.

 _Fuck._

He's so stupid. Instead of being so concerned about his friends, he should have spent more time wondering about those who weren't on his buddy list. Now Enzo is off terrorizing Sarah - and Matt, he realizes. _Keep your enemies closer._

With a growl, Stefan hops up, phone in hand as he goes through his contact list. He hesitates over the C's and D's before scrolling a little farther down. Pressing the call button, he brings the phone to his ear, leaving behind a fifty and Alaric on his date as he rushes out.

* * *

It's typically a three day drive from Salem to Yellowstone, so with the way they take turns driving in shifts and the backroads route they took because Kai doesn't want to play dodge with the frozen cars on the freeway, they manage to stretch it to almost twice that. Turns out, Bonnie was just aversive to flying in general as opposed to aversive to the idea of him piloting. The drive is boring and tedious to Kai, all the open space, but Bonnie loves it, making him think the necklace he nabbed was practically meant for her.

She's been more open since their redo, and the history lessons he gave her by the hanging tree in Salem. He's really disappointed in Sheila; Bonnie's lack of education becomes apparent whenever she starts bombarding him with questions. It's crazy that in comparison to how much power he can sense dammed up inside her, she quite literally had no idea how to use it.

He's an opportunist though, so he decides he'll be the one to teach her. They drive with all the windows down, listening to Kai's mixtapes of the only rock that matters - classic and grunge- and with the way Bonnie jams along with him, he starts to wonder if maybe he didn't dream up the perfect girl to spring him from jail. They make a game of creating scenarios of what they would do if they had magic - the spells they would cast, the potions they'd make, the people they would hex (Kai knows Bonnie is lying when she doesn't list any of her friends; he can still recall the way she used to get upset and curse them when she would make her video journals). The goal is to keep magic and himself in tandem, on the forefront of Bonnie's mind and to have her tune in to nature or whatever, no matter how mind-numbingly dull Kai finds the trip.

However, the siphon finds no issue with Bonnie's suggestion of roadside - or rather on the road - camping rather than finding motels every now and then. The first time she brings it up, Kai's surprised and a bit put-off, but then she pulls a pair of sleeping bags from the backseat with a celebratory wave. It's just cute enough that Kai changes his mind; besides, the prospect of her willing to sleep in close proximity to him feels validated for the ridiculous farce he's been playing at. So for those sporadic nights of gross outdoorsy-ish bonding, they lie on the hood of his car, unworried about the biting flies that don't exist here or the unchanging weather.

She always falls asleep before midnight, dreaming through the way the world stutters and shifts around them, the game of freeze frame reversing for just a moment before falling objects stop falling and rolling cars stop rolling. It's like putting a video on rewind and then pausing it at just the right moment. He watches the world twitch, the constellations realign just the slightest, listens to Bonnie's steady breathing at his shoulder, and feels less alone. It's almost enough for him.

-o0o-

"It's beautiful!" Bonnie exclaims, face lit up in wonder. Kai regards her with a soft expression as she pounces about before turning back to the colorful, heated pool of mineral water. It's on the tip of his tongue to say something cheesy, but then he remembers the flickering light from the gas stop restroom.

"That's the reason why I chose this place to die," he says instead. Bonnie's head swivels towards him in surprise, but Kai ignores her as he steps closer to the geyser. "I can't die in this world, so it became sort of a hobby of mine, to see all the ways I could die."

"Kai…" she utters softly and he focuses on her, takes in her expression. He has to chuckle at the horror he sees there.

"C'mon, don't look at me like that, Bon. I was alone here for almost two decades; not every day was going to be a good day."

Her face morphs into something both chagrined and sympathetic, but she says nothing as he continues.

"I liked Grand Prismatic a lot. It's the largest hot spring in the country, it's pretty to look at, and it's suuuper hot. I had tried suicide a few times already; I shot myself in the head, took a bunch of sleeping pills, carbon monoxide poisoning - good old-fashioned methods, but I kept coming back to life. I thought if I died here, there was no way I could come back, you know? There'd be nothing for this world to regenerate because my body would just cook and be stuck in the water constantly, like some messed up corn-on-the-cob."

He scoffs, "Somehow, I wake up on the shore - somewhere around here actually," he waves to the ground just left of where they're standing. "I was completely covered in third-degree burns; I didn't have eyes for a few hours and I kept coming to in intervals. Probably the most painful thing I think I've ever experienced."

Kai looks over at the hot spring, recalling the way the scalding hot water had engulfed his body after he cannon-balled right into it, naked and frustrated. He had lost more than his eyes - pretty much his entire body had melted like plastic, becoming warped and stuck to itself. His fingers and toes had all fused together and his ears and nose melded to his skull around the same time his eyes had burst. Kai has to bite back a wince when he remembers how sensitive flesh fell apart and his testicles had pretty much turned into mush - not a very happy thing for any guy to go through. It taken days for him to get over the memory, even long after he was perfectly healed. All of it was pretty much instantaneous, but it felt so terrible it seemed like he'd gone through it for years. Even the worst of it though, was nothing compared to the way the water felt going inside of him.

"Anyway, any time I got a hankering for death after that, I pretty much avoided anything with water. Drowning in a hot spring will ruin that for you," he gets contemplative. "I did set myself on fire once to see how similar it was. Not pleasant, but definitely not as bad as the combo of burning and drowning." He chuckles softly.

It takes him by surprise when her small body slams into his; she's not usually an incredibly affectionate girl and at first, he tenses, thinking for some reason that she's attacking him. But her arms wrap around him and her entire body is shaking. It takes him a moment to perceive that she's crying and when he does, he awkwardly pats her on the back, before realizing he needs to act more sympathetic.

Why is she crying? He's alive now and obviously not suicidal anymore. Kai doesn't understand, but he comforts her anyway, rubbing his hands along her back and humming soft assurances in her ear until she calms.

"Don't," her voice is muffled by his chest, but he hears her anyway. "Don't talk about throwing your life away so casually."

He jostles her lightly so that he can see her face; her green eyes are glassy and morose, face splotchy and pink, and she's _still_ the prettiest girl he's ever seen. He loves the way she wears misery - it excites him. But Kai also likes the way she rests her head on his shoulder; it's a new sensation for him, someone drawing comfort from his presence instead of being disturbed by it.

"I won't stay dead here, Bonnie, it's okay." She shakes her head, pushes him away angrily.

"But you didn't know that the first time, did you?" When he doesn't answer, Bonnie takes his silence as confirmation. "Don't be so casual about your life, Kai. People care. I care."

He stares at her drolly, confused and something else he can't identify. "You didn't even know me back then."

"I know you now," she snaps, steadily drifting away from sadness to anger the more he tries to argue with her. "And if you had been right the first time, I wouldn't."

The something else that he's feeling blooms right then. This reaction of hers - it's so much more raw than what he wanted to elicit. He'd only wanted her pity as a way to further her attachment, but this - this is…

Kai drinks her in and he has to struggle to breathe. The sensation is like the way he felt seeing her on the roof of the Empire State Building, but more intense, more demanding, more - just more. It feels like he's seeing her for the first time, like he was blinded in darkness and she's the sun, shedding light and color on the world around him. Kai swallows heavily; this is close to what he wants, but he never accounted for how it would affect him. He has no idea how to approach this.

"Okay," he rasps, his throat blocked. The necklace in his pocket burns, weighs a thousand pounds. "Okay, I won't."

Wiping away her tears with her shirt, Bonnie gazes at Grand Prismatic Spring with an almost sour look on her face and Kai knows that he's ruined the beautiful geography for her. He doesn't like knowing he did that.

"Let's go hiking," he calls out, needing to distract her. "You can stay close since you'd obviously be so lost without me."

* * *

His face is still buried in a pile of books when she returns to the boarding his from the hospital. Chancing a glance at the ancient text, Elena's eyes widen slightly before swivelling to her exhausted-looking boyfriend. She peruses his face; it's gaunt and hollow. She wonders when was the last time he ingested anything other than the bourbon that seemed to be a constant companion lately.

Running her fingers through his hair as she passes him to the kitchen, she tries to think of the best way to tell him to stop. Elena has no illusions at this point: she knows Damon isn't on the hunt for her sake. Caroline certainly wasn't. Whatever was driving the two of them was something inside, something so broken that they felt the only way to fix it was through some sort of danse macabre.

Before, when she was learning to deal with the influx of the paranormal in her life, she'd marvelled at the idea resurrecting the dead. Now, through her volunteer work at the hospital and simple self-reflection, she'd come to a sobering realization: she's not god. It doesn't matter how long the magic in her blood affixes her to the earth if she doesn't understand that her vampirism isn't all that high above the vulnerabilities of the human she could never be again. As a vampire, she could do a lot. Witches could do even more. But if even they feared the consequences of raising the dead, she had to realize there was probably a reason behind it.

Elena wasn't like Damon. She wasn't going to take decades to free herself from the confines of her eternal youth, stuck like some faded snapshot of who Elena Gilbert was when she died on that bridge. She wasn't going to let Caroline become that either.

Determination pulled around her like a cloak, she snags a blood-bag and prowls back into the parlor where Damon is still staring blearily at the tome in front of him and drops the bag in his lap. Snapping out of his reverie at the sudden impact, Damon blinks up at her. It's funny, she thinks, how much he seems to resemble another undead creature.

"What is this?" he questions.

"Drink up," she orders. "We need to talk."

He sighs, fiddling with the bag. "The magic words every man wants to hear from his girlfriend."

She snorts and seats herself on the floor opposite him, watching as Damon sips from the blood-bag. There's no way for her to ease into her point, so she doesn't.

"It's been four months, Damon." He tenses and she can already see the frown on his face as he prepares to fight her.

"Look, I'm just tryi-"

"I'm not giving up," his voice is hard when he interrupts her, and Elena forces herself to focus on her message and not the irritation that births in her chest.

"You need to let her go, Damon."

"I can't do that!" he snaps, jumping to his feet as he glares down at her, and it's so eerily reminiscent of the time she told him she couldn't stop loving him that she gets a chill. Ignoring the unease, she focuses her gaze on his, making sure to keep eye contact so he gets it, so he _feels_ it when she says what she says next, slowly rising to her full height so she can look at him equally.

"You need to let her go, Damon. Whether you bring her back or not."

Confusion washes over his face, and it breaks her heart to break his. "What are you saying, Elena?"

She swallows, suddenly nervous at the outright dread she can hear him trying to conceal.

"After you bring Bonnie back, what then? She's just gonna hang around us, surrounded by danger that always seems to come our way, risking her life for us - again?

The doppelganger stares at him. She wants Damon to get this, wants to drill it in his head so he understands, so he can't stubbornly deny it like he always does.

"The only safe place for Bonnie is far away from all of us. So either way, you'll need to let her go, because it's not fair to bring her back to life just to be hurt again."

She leaves him then, him and his devastated heart. She doesn't want to give him a chance to try and deny it.

Outside in her car, Elena looks at the lockscreen on her phone, where the beaming faces of her, Bonnie, and Caroline shone up at her. It's an old picture, halcyon days she can't get back. She changes the lockscreen to an image of her and her brother. And then, just when she's about to close the phone, she gets a call.

* * *

Kai is _soooooo_ over the nature walks. Arizona is hot as hell in May, and he's never seen the appeal of a giant crack in the ground. He looks over the railing, bobbing his head up and down dramatically to induce vertigo. He grins against the sickening feeling, but that too gets dull, and when he catches Bonnie eyeing him in disapproval, he winks at her.

She scoffs and raises the camcorder again, chatting into it about her thoughts on the Grand Canyon. Kai leans far over the railing one more time. This could be plan B for Bonnie's reawakening as a witch if plan A doesn't work out, he thinks, head aching from the pull of gravity on his body. Jerking back, he relishes the sensation of blood rushing through his head. Kai makes his way over to Bonnie, dizzy as he props his chin on her shoulder and grins charmingly into the camera. Her gaze flicks to him nervously.

He's surprised he's able to coordinate movement. Bonnie makes feel the same way as pretending to fall off cliffs does, like his head's about to pop off from all the blood rushing through it. Impulsively, he hugs Bonnie from behind and her accounts stutter to a stop. He watches her face in the camera screen as she watches him. Her backside is tense against his front and he wonders if she can see the hunger in his eyes. If it excites her as much as it scares her.

"Boooooon-nieeee," he whines to kill the moment. Her body relaxes.

"Mal-uh-kaiiiii," she mimics and he grins before letting her go.

"Let's leave, this is boring. I'm bored."

She sighs, exasperated. "It's the Grand Canyon, Kai. Look at that view!" she gestures behind her. "It's beautiful!"

He looks over his shoulder then back to her. "There. I've seen it. It's not as beautiful as you, therefore boring. Let's go."

"Shut up," she mutters, striking his shoulder lightly and looking down.

The younger witch shuffles her feet slightly, pleased and embarrassed by his blunt compliment. Things between them are different lately, the confessions at Yellowstone having cemented their shifting dynamic in a set direction. Kai knows where they're headed, no longer so impatient to hurl them those final steps or manipulate her affections. He's more himself around her than he's ever been around anyone else and for once, instead of being put off by it, she's someone who just rolls with it. He's J.D. and she's Veronica, and even if she does end up shooting him, he'll probably keep the bullet as a souvenir.

While he's been more relaxed about where they were going, she's been more reluctant to address it. The whole trip has become a metaphor for their relationship: they're headed for a certain destination and she chooses when to stop while he patiently urges her to keep going. They've been travel companions for almost a three weeks now and something has settled between them, the magnetism that pulled him to her when she first arrived in his little detention center seemingly growing into a unidirectional thing now. He follows her wherever she decides to go, he doesn't think he has a choice in the matter anymore, but that noted...

 _Fuck_ the Grand Canyon.

"It's a crack in the ground, Bon. Unless you have a bungee cord hidden in those shorts, I'm afraid my brains are gonna fall out of my ears from boredom."

She rolls her eyes at his dramatics. "God, you're ridiculous." She steps around him to make her way back up the quote unquote stairs that lead them down the canyon. Kai grins at the view of her backside. She's annoyed, but she's doing it anyway.

That magnetism again. She'll follow him wherever too, even if she doesn't realize it.

Moving to follow her, he casts one more look down the cliff side. His hand dips into his pocket where he thumbs at the expensive necklace that seems to burn him with every stroke. His eyes drift back to Bonnie, run up the length of her legs, pausing briefly where the hem of her cut-off shorts block the curve of a firm cheek from his starving gaze, then up to the brief expanse of skin left visible by her short hair. He wants to bite it, decorate her flesh with bruises from his kisses, imagines delicate gold links sitting lush on skin purpled by passion.

A shiver passes through her body and Bonnie pauses, turning around to face him. Their eyes catch and breaths are held. The silence between them is screeching prophecies.

"I thought you were bored," she interrupts it rudely. He smirks - he can be rude, too.

"I was just thinking - you were right about the view." She twitches nervously at his flirting, deciding to start back up the steps instead of addressing it. Kai follows behind her, unwilling to fight the pull.

* * *

Absently, Liv wipes down the bar, ignoring the din of the bar as she cleans up. The phone in her back pocket feels heavy, the _lets eat 2nite_ text her brother sent her resonating in her head. Luke's been fairly absent lately; he's been spending as much time as he could with Dr. Sexy Sugar Daddy and hasn't exactly been super forthcoming about the going-ons in his life the closer The Merge, capitalized, gets.

It's been fucking annoying, she thinks, knowing her brother is ignoring her because he thinks he's probably going to kill her soon. She hopes he doesn't get too bent out of shape over it - he'll have a coven to run, after all. The morbid thought sends a fleeting smile across her face. She can almost hear Luke scolding her.

To be fair, she doesn't think he realizes that he's the likely victor of their coven's twisted election. More than likely, he's just soaking up as much time with his boyfriend in case he can't anymore.

Tossing the dirty rag in the dish bucket, Liv stretches out the kinks in her back, thinking that getting laid as much as she can before the clock strikes death actually isn't a bad idea. Thanksgiving break was soon and she had the holiday off from the bar - spending it holed up receiving orgasms seemed brilliant actually. If only she had a convenient source of dick to help work things out for her.

The dinging bell calls her attention and she heads over to where a familiar douchebag waits to be served.

The former werewolf looks at her, as equally unimpressed with her as she was with him.

"Great customer service you have here," he snarks when she's in front of him.

Liv smiles like a Barbie. "Thanks. Please tip to really show your appreciation."

"I'll keep that in mind if I can actually get a beer in less time than it probably takes you to have a happy thought."

Liv has to snort at the snappy comeback in order to hide the laugh that wants to bubble out, but she gets started on his drink anyway. It takes her no time at all to tap it, obviously, the small crowd before the after work rush helping. Capping off his drink when it starts to foam over, she presents it to Lockwood with a lazy flourish.

"One beer, no happy thoughts," she keeps her voice as deadpan as she can make it, the lack of intonation making the jock quirk a brow.

"Thanks," he mutters and, to her surprise, actually drops a ten in the tip jar on top of the twenty he leaves as payment. "Keep the change."

Tyler takes his drink and heads off to a table where some guys, equally as meatheaded, are gathered. Liv watches the stretch of his broad shoulders as he joins in easily, chuckling at some dude's joking and tossing a muscular arm around the guy's neck. An idea settles. She pulls out her phone.

 _rain check til tmr? smth came up_

* * *

This is a bad idea. The thought pings across the walls of her mind. A terrible, no good, ruination-of-ruminations, _bad_ idea. But cramped close to her ruiner under a soft light, Bonnie doesn't care enough to fight the tugging sensation anymore.

" _It's a world of laughter, a world of tears. It's a world of hope and a world of fears._ "

The ride is a cool down from the almost over exciting day they've had so far. Turns out, amusement park rides are way more fun when you don't have to wait in line, despite the fact that the general atmosphere of abandonment and frozen rides has a creepy vibe. Before Kai had started fidget with the controls of the roller coasters, the feeling she had as she walked through Adventureland and perused some of the rides frozen midway, imaging the people that had once preoccupied them vanishing into air or the ghostly images appearing as everything just duplicated - it was ominous. She wondered how Kai could stand it, before he had grabbed at her and tugged her along for yet another playdate.

" _There's so much that we share, that it's time we're aware._ "

Had it been anyone else, she might have been annoyed with the constant silliness. But she's dead and it's nice to relax and have fun for once, to wake up without worrying about if her magic was strong enough for the next task she had to accomplish. Being here with Kai is a relief, a heavy inhale after a long time being unable to breath. And for all she had been waiting to be away, he had been waiting to join back in. She wonders how her child-like companion had been able to withstand the loneliness - throughout their road trip from Mystic Falls to Anaheim, aside from the kiss in the gas station, all he seemed to want from her was her companionship. The least she could do was indulge him.

" _It's a small world after all._ "

Kai's arms are slung across the back of seat, his whole body simultaneously taking up all Bonnie's space while offering her his. She wants to burrow herself against him, and is repulsed at herself by the urge. Unaware of her inner warfare, his voice competes with the singing of the little dolls as their boat takes them around the globe.

"There's like a half finished fun house up in this area that's cut off and there's a picture of a creeeeepy-looking cowboy just slapped across the front of it. Like, what the hell? I'd keep that away from the general populace too. I wonder what the heck that was supposed to be?" he wonders out loud. "I can't think of anything that Disney ever did with a cowboy."

"Toy Story?" Bonnie offers absently. The scent of his aftershave is making her dizzy, mint and pine and musk mingled with the smell of his flesh distracting her from his ramblings.

"What's that?"

Pulling herself away from her preoccupation before she throws her face in his armpit and starts sniffing at him like a dog, Bonnie frowns at the question.

"Seriously?" she tries to remember when the film came out even as she continues. "It's one of Disney-Pixar's most popular franchises. The cowboy is Woody. Disneyland has a Toy Story funhouse."

Kai looks at her blankly. "Never heard of it," he dismisses. She scoffs, concluding that the movie must have been released after his father sent him here.

"Old-ass man," she mutters. Bonnie often forgets that he's just as much frozen here as everything else, just as unchanging, an image of a young man that existed in 1994, but would have been entirely swallowed by time had he gotten to stay in the world until 2012. He pokes her ribs, jolting her thoughts and causing her to squirm, a tickle-coerced smile flashing across her face.

"Does that mean I get to spank you, youngun?" he teases, and his voice is different now, and there it is. That reorientation to the world, that tugging feeling returned, anchored somewhere between her chest and the apex of her thighs, and fuck. Just fuck.

No, she thinks to herself, don't do that.

The grin on her face fades when she meets his gaze, dark and hungry. Is hers like that too? Does she seem just as ravenous to him as he does to her? Or can he see the fading resistance reflecting in her irises?

" _There is just one moon and one golden sun._ "

His face is suddenly closer, the arm that had been resting on the back of the seat unexpectedly constricting around her like a coiling snake. Is she the mouse, she thinks, eyes flicking between his blown pupils and his pink lips, or is she another snake in the pit? Kai's nose skims against hers once he's reeled her in. Mouse or serpent, she thinks he will consume her either way.

Her breath catches and her hand clutches at his shoulder, pushing, pulling, maintaining a perilous balance. Despite this, he's so close now that Bonnie has to tilt her head back to meet his half-lidded stare, her stuttering breaths taking in his exhales. Is that why she's so light-headed? Because the wrong gas is binding to her blood, shutting down her functions, slipping in undetected. Or is that Kai in her bloodstream?

"No re-dos this time," he mutters, and the draft of his breath smells sweet like the cotton candy and funnel cake he'd consumed earlier. She swallows the saliva that had gathered in her mouth, hypnotized by his voice. "I want to keep this one."

His mouth captures hers.

He tastes as sweet as his breath had suggested and Bonnie chases the sugar, both hands flying up to grip his head and pull him closer. Kai chuckles softly around her eager tongue, let's her elevate the kiss to new places. The arm wrapped around her shoulders squeezes her closer, pulling her up on his lap even as she pulls him down to her. He's stronger, his tugs luring her on top of him and Bonnie finds her body straddling his. A deep inhale fills her lungs with the smell of him, earthy and biting like a forest. She's hungry and she realize that between them she is the real snake, larger and more hollow than he could hope to be.

Kai pulls away from her with a deep gasp and before she can redirect him, his lips are suckling at the place on her neck, his hands clasping at her waist, thumbs a bruising force against her hip bones. He grinds her down on hardened member as he rolls his body up against hers, the friction trapped between their jean shorts still eliciting enough pleasure to make Bonnie throw her head back with sensual moan, eyes closed against the sensation.

" _Let's play some love with a little twi-twi-twist._ "

The soft light flickers out at the same time the recording gets stuck, flaring back on brighter than before. The power surge cause the boat to get stuck on the tracks and Bonnie's eyes open to see the dolls of Nepal leering at her, a sinner seeking absolution at their waters from the boy between her thighs. Looking down, she finds Kai staring up with large eyes, still black with dilated pupils despite the sudden brightness and a shuddering exhale rattling his chest. As the lights begin to dim again, his eager hands yank her shirt over her head and she throws her arms up, letting him expose her naked chest.

Bonnie was wrong: he's hungry too, all sharp teeth and dragging sucks when his mouth finds a new occupation with her breasts. His left arm runs diagonal to her spine, clasping her right shoulder with a burning grip, his right hand squeezing her ass. It burns something awful where he touches her and Bonnie's nails dig into him, desiring to inflict as much sweet agony on him as he is on her. The flesh of his chest is warm under her palms and when did he decide to match her?

With a whirr, the ride starts up again, the lights lower than before and Bonnie can only hear the sound her own ragged breaths and the suckling of Kai's lips. Large hands, nimbly fingered, quickly undo the resistance of her zippered front. Kai's hands make short of her shorts, discarding them carelessly on the floor of the boat and leaving her in a just a pair of strawberry patterned panties. A brown nipple between his teeth, he stretches it slightly, causing her to arch back before he releases it, the cool air quick to chill the saliva he's left behind. Leaning over her, he presses her down into the seat with his body, hands gripping her thighs to splay them wide, eyebrows twitching up when they go farther than he expected.

"Dancer. High school cheerleader," she explains tersely. He bites back the curl of his lip, but Bonnie can practically see the image in his head. She's rolls her eyes, but tenderly thumbs his ear anyway.

"Maybe if you're nice to me," she informs his hushly and he smiles down at her.

"I'm always nice to you, Bonster."

She opens her mouth to disagree, to truthfully call him out on being a pain in the ass, but the older witch cuts off her protests with another hard kiss. Just below her ear, he presses another with the scrape of teeth and bruising force, and another after that on the bone between her breasts, yet another still after that just above her navel. A wicked tongue flicks at the actual indention, a preview of his intentions.

" _It's a small world after all._ "

The slow, lowly pitched resurgence of the song would startle her if she wasn't so preoccupied with watching Kai as his tongue traced the seams of her underwear, mouth huffing warm air against her sensitive flesh with each almost subdued kiss he presses on her. He's horrendously old compared to her when she accounts for their real ages, but here in this small, lonely world, he's just a boy and she's just a girl, well-matched in naivete and nerves.

She knows nothing at all about his sexual history, doesn't even know he's actually not a virgin, although she doubts he is. But he's so patient and hesitant, that she could almost believe it if he told her he was one. Between her selectivity with her body and the very long pause placed on his sex life, these moments starting to build between them is a plunge for them both.

" _After all, can you hear me now?_ "

"Kai," the sound from her lips is barely more than a sigh. She loves the way her voice sounds wrapped around his name. Like idolization.

Blue-grey eyes flick up to her as the siphon hooks the seat of her panties with his index finger, pulling it to the side. The air is cool as it races to press against her exposed folds, and a shiver wracks her body. She can hear the sound of his zipper coming undone and sees his arm move, the way his lids go heavy with pleasure. His puffing breath feels even warmer in comparison to the drafty air without the blockade of fabric.

"Bon?" he replies to her exhalation. "Can I keep it?"

She understands. No re-dos. No start agains. If he kisses her now, he wants the memory to remain between them.

Licking her lips, Bonnie swallows against the lump in her throat. His hair tickles her pliant thighs when he cocks his head to view her face better. She wants his mouth on her, wants to see the lights flicker and the world stop again because of what he could pull from her.

"Can I keep it?" he repeats, the vibrations of his voice enticing her clit. His words are arsenic in hot chocolate, sweet and warming even as it kills her. Bonnie thinks she wants Kai to kill her. So she tells him to.

"You can keep it."

* * *

 **Gluttony: Appetites are hard to satisfy. || Temperance: Moderation is just a form of starvation.**

A/N: Sorry I've been out so long. My final year at uni started so I have devote a lot of time to my classes, work picked up, and I found out the bae put a wee human in me, so... Yeah. Excuses, I know. Sorry fam. I'm doing my best to put out a lot of stuff this month before going on another mini hiatus. Heads up this time.


	4. Avaritia et Caritas

**WARNINGS:** Super smutty chapter. Jolaric and (ugh, I shiver) some necessary Daroline that discusses sexual assault. Mild violence. I think Enzo is fairly sucky, so I tried to make him more badass. No other real warnings, most of the problematic ones are for the next chapter.

" **Denial Isn't Just a River in Egypt"**

 _Even if I knew already_

 _I can't stop_

 _No way no way no way, it's falling_

 _As time passes_

 _It just becomes more ruined_

 _No way no way it's collapsing again_

 _A house made of cards, and us, inside_

 _Even though the end is visible, even if it's going to collapse soon_

 _A house made of cards, we're like idiots_

 _Even if it's a vain dream, stay like this a little more_

 _-BTS; House of Cards (English translation)_

* * *

Kai's a monster, she's sure of it.

His lips are latched to hers like a vacuum seeking her heart and soul. A slithery tongue caresses her own as she falls back onto the bed, his heat covering her like a solid blanket. A moan escapes her vocal cords. The world around her is hazy, reduced to Kai, his scent, his taste, his heat. Bonnie's burning up.

Letting Kai get to third base seemed to unlock some sort of primal need in him. He won't stop touching her and as tired and wrung out as she is from the orgasms he's already bestowed on her, Bonnie won't let his touch wander far. All points of them are magnetized, opposite and adjacent poles at once repelling and enticing. Bonnie wants to fling him, and this feeling, as far away as she can, just as much as she wants to dwell in it forever.

Their lips disband from each other and he props up on one arm as he adjusts his weight. A trail of saliva descends down her neck, following his licks and kisses down to her collarbones. She's already naked, her clothes lost somewhere on the way between the boat ride and the luxury suite they've cocooned themselves in. Kai is equally bare and her legs fall open further as he grinds himself against her core. His mouth sucks a new bruise on her chest to join the pretty ring of purple and red decorating her brown skin. One of his hands disappears between them to help his rigid member glide between the cleft of her labia.

Bonnie hisses at the sensation, bucking against him. Sweat already glistens on them, friction and California air working together to warm them. A plump bottom lip is captured between Bonnie's teeth and Kai's hand, the one that had been between them, moves to cup her ass and haul her closer. His other forearm slips under her shoulder, holding her steady so that they can undulate against each other more easily.

His mouth returns to hers, sucking her already abused bottom lip into its cavern and she smiles at the sensation. Kai feels the grin, returns it, his nose bumping hers in an Eskimo kiss when he releases her captive mouth. Their eyes connect. He still rocks on her easily. Bonnie's so wet.

"Fuck, I want you," he murmurs. His gaze never leaves her despite the candid confession and he looks enthralled. Bonnie knows the feeling.

Bonnie wiggles a bit until she has one leg thrown over his shoulder and the other snaking around his waist. She's so glad for all the dancing and cheering and yoga she does when Kai's eyes glaze slightly in disbelief. Kai looks down at her cunt, now exposed for him. The glans of his dick catches on her vagina's opening and dips inside, a shallow tease.

His eyes flick up to her face from their previous occupation on her slit when a shiver escapes her. He moves the hand under her shoulder, gripping her hair and tilting her head back. Bonnie's breath escapes her at the pull. He nips at her vulnerable neck, teeth scraping road burns onto her skin. The only other person in the world and she lets him bite her and press his naked body to hers and rub against her clit. What a lucky day for Kai. Her core clenches at the barely there presence of his dick, on the nothing that is taunting her, before he soothes the injustice with a hard thrust. A sharp ache fires from her her womb when he hits the sensitive head of her cervix. She gasps.

"Kai," his name is barely there on Bonnie's lips, a hush, a prayer, just mouthing around the syllable. He hears her, hums in question. She clenches down again, this time wrapped around something solid and thick, her body a port for his. Bonnie feels overfull.

She doesn't answer Kai's wordless inquiry. Maybe she had only wanted to call the name of the boy on top of her, paying homage to her tired and pleasure-wracked body. Sweat beads along her forehead and chest, gliding in slow trails down her body. Kai pulls out then snaps his hips forward, starting to thrust into her earnestly. His eyes track the descent of her sweat as he fucks the honey from her womb, the way they stutter when pleasure wracks her body. The heat is oppressive this time of the afternoon, sunny California in spring seemingly bent on being hell. And surely, _surely_ , Kai has designated himself her own personal demon, determined to wreck her with sensation.

Kai sits up, moving the leg around his waist to the bed and straddling it. Gripping the leg on his shoulder, he bends it up and out, angled away from his torso, to make space for himself. A whimper escapes her and Bonnie props herself up with her elbows, lending support so she doesn't get scooted off the bed by Kai's rough treatment. He fucks into her like an animal, like he's rutting and Bonnie rolls into it. The resort bed quakes beneath them. The sex kind of hurts. His dick's too big or her cunt's too tight or both. She feels like she's about to cry, mindlessly murmuring encouragements. Tingles and warm chills run up the length of her spine. Her toes curl, traction she uses to meet him halfway, help him go deeper. Her head lolls back.

He's dicking her down so sublimely and Bonnie is in outer space.

A hard smack on her clit jolts her thoughts and the witch bucks involuntarily into it. His free hand comes up to tweak her nipple, twisting almost cruelly for second before releasing it.

"Don't leave me here alone," he speaks, sharp teeth chastising her absent-mindedness by clamping on her ankle. Bonnie jerks violently in response. His wicked tongue soothes the bite, imbibing the sweat he and this heat have coaxed out over the past few hours. "Do you want me to chase you?"

He's a monster.

Her mind is hazy, overstimulated by endorphins. She wants to rest, but Kai is so demanding of her attention, keeping her in the moments of rapture. Honestly, it takes Bonnie by surprise at how much of a sadistic lover her easy-going companion turned out to be.

Suddenly pulling out, Kai adjusts his position and pushes both of her legs back until her ass is in the air, her backside perched against his upper chest. He swoops down on the sensitive flesh of her pussy with a thick lave. The hard tip of his tongue flicks her clit before the appendage softens to swab at the bundle of nerves. The Bennett girl tries to lift her head and peer up at him, but he clamps a heavy hand on her neck, binding her to stillness. Bonnie is surprised at the sturdiness of the grip, his fingers actually squeezing down on her veins with just the right amount of pressure. Spots swim in her vision. Euphoria is Bonnie's new addiction. She hopes his grip leaves marks, how fucked up was that? Kai was unleashing kinks in her she didn't know she had.

Her lips tingle. She's breathless. Bonnie mouths his name again, even softer than before. Kai's grip loosens.

"What's that?" he asks her muff. The vibrations on her clit make her shudder.

"Kai," she calls again, her voice louder this time. The intonation sounds reedy and desperate to her own ears, and his cheeks curving into her creased thighs is no surprise.

"Yes?" His free hand slides up and down her sides, petting her. His knuckles brush her nipples while his other hand tightens sporadically on her neck. Soft kisses to the clit match the rhythm.

"Please," she begs, on the verge of tears. Bonnie is so tired. He licked almost innumerable orgasms out of her already on _It's a Small World_ , making the walk to the resort wobbly. Her legs flex. "Just cum, please. Cum with me, let me, let me -"

Her mumbling goes incoherent. The knuckles transform into fingertips, pushing harder against her ribs. His kisses turn to bites, almost vicious in the darting sharpness. Bonnie spasms at the new sensation.

"You done, Bon?" he taunts. The words are warm puffs of air against her sensitive cunt. "Want me to finish you off?"

"Please," and this time the word is a sob. Tears glassen her eyes when he flips her on her tummy, plunging back into her precise and with intention. There's a moment when she feels overfull, like he's breached every inch of her, but he's still pushing in. The witch writhes as he pulls her down on those last few centimeters of his cock that her body was just barely able to take, the shaft pressing urgently on her insides. Bonnie takes back every doubting thought about the state of his sexual experience - apparently he was a dirty fucking bastard in 1994 and eighteen years later, the borderline BDSM preferences come back like riding a bike.

Kai fucks her like it's his job, scraping fingernails across her clit and roughing up the sensitive bundle of nerves between his fingertips. His dick pounds against her G-spot like the two were bitter enemies. Bonnie cries out at the sensation, hips jerking about. Away from or toward the source of her demise, she's unsure. The harsh scrape of teeth on her neck appears suddenly, his lips pursing around her flesh and pulling, again and again, trapping and releasing the blood vessels in her neck, turning them to rosettes. Bonnie's chest feels tight. Tingles run along the center of her spine, more intensely than before. She is sure she's dying.

Lava floods her body, heat fusing to every circuit and circulation Bonnie has. White spots filter her vision as another tidal wave of an orgasm crashes over her. Fuck. _Fuck._ Her body twitches, and he licks her skin like she is made of ice-cream. Soft and savoring. His hand lets up on her clit, rubbing less directly, easing her through the orgasm as if he didn't delight in wrecking her. Her spasming hole milks him and Kai grunts against her ear, grinding his own orgasm into her flesh. Jism fills her, and she thinks he's done.

But then he leans back, moving her knees up so that only her chest is still pressed flat to the bed and she's face down, ass up. He keeps fucking her through both of their orgasms, his spunk squelching out of her with each slow, deep thrust and dripping over her labia, over him, mixing with his spit and her slick and their combined sweat. Bonnie shudders again, her pussy clenching once more as another small orgasm shocks her. She thinks she hates Kai.

The guy's a monster.

-o0o-

They move rooms rather than bothering with changing the sheets and it's the first time that Bonnie's spent the night in a Disneyland resort. Lounging on a plushy bed in an empty hotel after occupying most of the day with park rides and then Kai's rides is relaxing. Bonnie sips on Zima as she watches Kai dance to "Whoop, There It Is." He looks ridiculous, Tootsie rolling and doing the early nineties version of twerking in nothing put his black boxers, but she supposes she's not much better off, lounging on the bed in her birthday suit. At least he bothered to put on underwear. She's naked and past the point of tipsy, giggly drunk and still languidly high from the last orgasm Kai had bestowed on her.

Bonnie has a crush.

It's not so bad though, considering Kai is crushing back. Her fellow inmate falls onto the bed beside her, wide grin plastered on his face as he pulls her in for a hug. He pecks her mouth with his.

"Road trips are fun with other people."

She smiles at his remark, looping her arms around his neck and pulling him over her as she lies on her back. Bonnie has officially been dead for five months - a month and a half longer than the last time she'd been dead. This time around, everyone who would care already knows she's dead and if they've tried to find her she has no clue. At this point, the lookers have either given up or haven't found a way to help her out.

Fuck it, Bonnie decides. She's dead. She _died._ Again. She no longer really had any obligations to the people she's left behind. Reckless behavior was an overdue venture for her.

"Kai," Bonnie laughs, pushing his face away from where it had buried in the pivot of her sex-mangled neck. His kisses were tickling her. He presses a kiss to her hand instead, sucking her fingers into his mouth. Her eyes glaze over slightly, his darken and she enjoys the look - hungry, wanting, primal. She wants to keep it there.

She pushes the digits deeper into his mouth, risking his teeth now that she knows how he is during sex, but he surprises her by sucking harder. Soon her fingers are drenched with his saliva and he pulls the hand from his mouth, moving it between her thighs as he leans back. Kai admires the sight briefly before chancing a glance at her.

"Well?" he questions. "Do I get a show too, Bonster?"

Bonnie grins, making him smirk back. Fuck it, she decides. If it's a show he wants, it's a show he'll get.

* * *

Lucy's Portland contact actually came through and Damon has desperately latched onto the idea of prison worlds. Somehow, the witch Lucy had connected him to was able steal pages of a grimoire from an ancient coven known as the Gemini. Creation of the prison worlds was one of the many contributions that Bennett witches made to the supernatural world. As far he can tell, Sheila, and possibly even Abby, had been the latest Bennett's to make contact with the Gemini and this causes something a little too close to hope to flutter excitedly in his throat.

Sheila said she helped Bonnie find peace. Just maybe there was a world...maybe. Maybe he could get Abby to help him out, to confirm his suspicions. Damon's thoughts race with possibilities and visions of seeing Bonnie again, the anticipation of finally being able to breathe after alleviating his guilt. He could trick Abby or bully her into helping to bring her daughter back, she owed Bonnie that. He could even mobilize as soon Caroline answered her fucking phone.

He goes to voicemail again, and this time, instead of hanging up, he snarls out a "Where the fuck _are_ you, Barbie? I've got a lead, a really good one, and you're AWOL. Call me back if you still care about helping your friend."

The call is disconnected by his flippantly dismissive hand and he jogs out to the Camaro, starting it up and letting the roar of the engine rattle through him and set a rhythm of comfort. He's not helpless if he's moving and doing something.

Still, he's hesitant to start. Caroline's been a driving force during this whole venture and, as annoyed as he is, it feels weird to proceed without her. With an aggravated groan, he grabs up his phone once more. He remembers the "digital locator spell" Bonnie once showed him, and he utilizes the tracker now to see where the hell Caroline is.

Her little red dot pops up somewhere just outside of Richmond, so he taps it and puts the GPS on. He thinks that she had better be fucking appreciative of him wasting his time on her flakiness before he takes off.

* * *

Once more, there's a silence that's fallen between them after an intimation, but this one feels more - settled. At least, Kai thinks it's a far from the awkwardness that had haunted them after that kiss at the gas station, although if he was being honest, he was surprised at the ease at which Bonnie had given into his advances. Perhaps loneliness had made her crazy too.

Or maybe he did. Maybe she was just as fucking twisted around him as he was around her. If Kai ever became amnesiac, he doesn't think he'd be able to forget the femininity that was Bonnie, not the curve of her hips and pelvis, not the cute noises she makes when she's worn out, nor the taste of her pleasure when she grips his head between steely thighs. Bonnie Bennett has become implicit to Kai's chemical make-up and he doesn't know whether to run from her or kill her, knowing that wanting her comes to him as easily as siphoning or breathing.

She stretches and moans softly, the sound catching Kai's attention and making him glance at her. His love bites decorate the slender column of her cinnamon throat and his mouth waters in recollection of the scent of almonds and honey that filled his nostrils when he put them there. Bonnie notices his gaze and smiles prettily at him. He grins back.

Her eyes start to drift shut again, and Kai is growing tired of listening to Roberta Flack, so he taps her on the leg. He wants to hear anything she has to talk about.

"Tell me more about Mystic Falls - maybe when we get out, I can you help with stuff."

Her voice has a quiet inflection when she speaks, and Kai finds himself fascinated by this side of her, content and sleepy and fucked to serenity. But then she says something about Travelers and it pulls his attention from the way she speaks to what she's actually saying.

"Travelers?" he inquires.

"Mhmm," she hums. "This coven of witches who didn't believe in spirit magic. They came after Elena and Stefan because of a doppelganger curse and then erected a magical barrier around the town so vampires couldn't get in."

She snorts derisively suddenly. "Wanna know the part I feel worst about? I was tutoring a girl named Liv how to do magic, but it turns out she was sent by some coven to watch out for the Travelers. I felt so humiliated."

Kai feels gut-punched. His grip on the wheel tightens. "Liv?" he asks. "What was her last name?"

"It was -," Bonnie pauses and sits up. "It was Parker. Kai, you don't think -?"

He nods. "It's possible." The siphon licks his lips. Excitement thrills through him, his hate surging, aching and hungry. "I had a younger sister named Olivia. Just a little kid then. Blonde. Twin brother named -"

"Luke?" Bonnie whispers. Kai's heart pounds as he nods in affirmation, murmuring out "Lucas."

Not only were those place-stealing brats doing well, but his revenge against them, for taking everything that was supposed to be his, would be _cake_. All he had to do was stick with Bonnie, and that would be easy enough.

"Are you okay?" Bonnie asks. He wonders what he looks like for her to sound so deeply concerned.

"Yeah," and his voice is weak, rough. He clears his throat. "Yeah, I just -," he thinks about his blood-splattered home. The lie rolls easily off his tongue. "I didn't know if they were alive or not, I mean the house back home is all..."

He cuts himself off and lets the silence linger. Bonnie takes his right hand in hers, entwining their fingers with a gentle squeeze.

"Hey," she murmurs. "This is good news. You have someone to go home to."

Kai glances her, takes in her soft, sincere eyes and gentle smile. His chest feels tight and he wants her again. He looks back at the road and grips her hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. Her words are ironic, considering this moment is the most at-home Kai has felt in nearly twenty years.

"Yeah," he nods. "You're right."

* * *

Jo giggles as Alaric presses hard kisses to her smiling mouth, pulling him towards her eagerly. The sound becomes full blown laughter when he tongues down her neck playfully and his fingers skim under her shirt. They linger briefly on her scar before he yanks the shirt over her head and pushes her back on the bed.

Alaric kisses down her stomach, over the scar that Kai gave her nearly twenty years ago, telling her in his own way that he thought she was beautiful. They have each other stripped in no time and then he's pressed against her, hands and mouth lighting her on fire. Then he slips inside her and it's so good.

Her body feels hot and Alaric's body is warm and heavy over hers. Jo meets every thrust for thrust, her lower body aching from the pounding. She's not sure how long they're locked together, engaging in mildly rough play, not sure how many orgasms she has but then he finishes inside her, and she's moaning his name and the feeling she has is so satiated.

They lie naked together, his arm thrown around her middle. Alaric thumbs at the scaring on her belly and she has to suppress the shiver that threatens her bliss. She tries not to think about Kai or that night when he gutted her, both literally and figuratively.

But something slithers up her spine, some leftover witch sense, and no matter how much she tries to ignore the sensation, it persists.

* * *

He tried to warn her about all the blood in the Parker house, but Bonnie seems, while freaked out, oddly calm about the fact that he 'thinks' a massacre occurred in his home. There's still some upset in her gaze and he hates it, so Kai pokes her in the ribs.

"Follow me, Bonsterella," he teases and she makes a face at the awful nickname. Regardless, she gives him her hand and follows behind him to the kitchen compliantly. He thinks it's a far cry from the girl who pulled a _Psycho_ on him when they first met.

He gets her to agree to help him to cook dinner, making moon-eyes and telling her that Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday. There's a newspaper on the counter and he knows its contents, so under the guise of making room, he trashes it.

When she's all giggly and adequately distracted, he seats her at the kitchen table and grabs up a clean towel. She eyeballs him warily.

"What're you doing with that?"

"Blindfolding you," he shrugs. When she continues to look at him deadpan, he chuckles.

"Just trust me," he goads.

"Mhmm," she replies and closes her eyes. He wraps the towel around her head and gently ties it off to not snag her hair. He waves a middle finger in front of her face and when she doesn't react he grins.

"Don't cheat, okay? I'll be right back!"

He runs off, stopping by the cellar and the garden, grabbing what he needs before coming back to check on her.

She hasn't moved, so he pops a quick peck on her cheek, which makes her smile. Her hand comes up to move the blindfold and he smacks it down.

"Hey, hey, patience. I'm not done."

Bonnie sighs dramatically, but sits quietly as he finishes setting up. He tries to figure out if he should wait for everything to finish cooking, but figures she might not have the patience to wait that long, so he just sets up what's ready.

Double checking everything, he sidles up behind her and and unties the towel. It falls in her lap.

"Ta-da! Happy Thanksgiving!"

Bonnie's eyes light up in recognition and a smile blooms over her face. Kai grins in answer until she starts crying and Kai literally has no clue what to do.

"Um," he starts. "Should I take it down?" Bonnie laughs and shakes her head, eyes still glassy.

"No, I just," she waves at the centerpiece he quickly set up, at the bursts of yellow and orange daffodils and long stalks of white asphodel. "Daffodils are my favorite. And the food looks good."

He side-eyes her. "You're not upset?"

"No," she replies. "I'm happy."

"Okaaaay," he teases. "Because I got some wine, but if you're a weepy drunk…"

She snorts and throws the towel at him. They finish setting up the Thanksgiving dinner and when Bonnie finally has a sip of the wine, she moans.

"Oh my god," she gushes. "What kind of wine is this?"

Kai grins. "It's good right? My mom used to make it before she died. She used pomegranates instead of grapes and added some other witchy woo stuff to make it-" he kisses his fingertips to make the point.

"It's really good," she murmurs before downing more. Kai watches her carefully. He wasn't lying about the wine having witchy woo. If it worked right then Bonnie should be feeling extremely happy and content, his mother's signature potion for inducing joy and merriment doing its job.

Kai wanted her happy. He wanted her to associate him with only good things and he didn't care if it was cheating. Bonnie was powerful, beautiful, clever and she was a Bennett matriarch. She was perfect.

He needed her on his side.

Kai drinks more of the wine himself and soon the pair of them are too giggly to really pay attention to the food. Then Bonnie grabs his collar and hauls him over to her. Her mouth is sweet like the wine, forbidden like the fruit. He grips her face and pulls her closer, tonguing at her lips, her teeth and the roof of her mouth, wanting to taste every bit of her.

Being around her is a dizzying experience, and it happens in flashes, and yet he swears he can remember every touch and and every sweet noise that escapes her. Kai's drunk, on the wine and on the girl.

He's pushing stuff out of the way, lying her spread on the table so he can explore his way all over her body with his mouth. He lives for the way she reacts to him eating her out, the forceful grips she has on his hair and the way she writhes and cries out. Even without getting touched, he could probably come from that alone. And then it's a reversed situation and he's being pushed onto his back on the floor, wine spilling over the edge if the table and onto his suddenly bare chest.

Bonnie's licking it from his skin, kissing around his grinning mouth and taking his member inside of her. Kai hisses at the heat and the grip, already being milked by her insides. His hand rises up, gripping her neck - he likes to feel the pulse under his fingers, to have that lingering threat that he _could_ hurt her and that lingering possibility that _she would let him_. When Bonnie wraps her own hand over his, holding it around her neck, Kai lets out an involuntary growl.

The little witch rides him like fucking him is all she was made for and he fucks her right back, feeling just the same. Being inside her is heaven, the closest his twisted soul will probably ever come to. And when she kisses him, when he cums, his vision whites out briefly and then all he sees is her.

* * *

She's already sneaked her blood to one of the hospital's terminal patients and now Caroline waits patiently for the results of her little experiment. She compels away anyone who approaches her, until soon enough the entire staff in the ward is ignoring her presence.

There's some commotion coming from the room of the man she spiked with her blood and it peaks the blonde's interest. She stands up when several medical staff rush into the room, listening in on what everyone's saying, trying to make sense of it all.

Caroline's so concentrated, she doesn't hear him approach until he's right next to her and asking, "What the hell are doing here? Why didn't you answer my calls?"

Her eyes widen and dart to Damon, with his black leather and blacker hair. She turns her attention back to the hospital room.

"I'm trying to find something out." Caroline can hear phrases like "it's a miracle" and "never seen anything like this" being thrown around and elation bubbles in up behind her belly.

Damon looks at her suspiciously. "What'd you do, Barbie?"

Caroline scowls at his stupid nickname, but answers honestly anyway. "I'm figuring out a way to save someone with cancer." She gestures to the room. "That man was dying of cancer. Brain tumors. Now he's not."

Damon scowls back at her. "You wasted my time on that? Really?"

"It's not a waste of time, jackass! It's for my mom," Caroline hisses before clamming up immediately. She hadn't meant to divulge that much.

The older vampire instantly softens. "Liz has cancer?"

Shrugging, Caroline looks down at the ugly linoleum floor. "Yeah."

The hug is unexpected, coming from Damon, but the emotional crumpling is even more so, coming from her. She doesn't really expect Damon to appreciate her crying on to him, he'd always been a dick to her before about anything she said or thought or felt, having deemed her a vapid blonde and never looking past that. She's not Elena, so she doesn't expect him to care. But he holds her and murmurs apologies, and heaven help her, it was exactly what she needed.

"I'm sorry," he pats her back. "I'm sorry about Liz. I'm sorry about everything."

Caroline sniffles a few more times, before pulling away and patting at her damp eyes with her sleeve. Thank goodness for waterproof makeup.

"Everything?" she asks. She's only teasing, trying to lighten up the situation. Damon shuffles uncomfortably though; it catches her attention. He looks down and she can swear his cheeks are pink.

"Yes," he breathes, looking up. Damon makes his crazy, wide-eyed, eyebrow-wave face. "Everything. I'm sorry Liz is dying, neither of you deserve to feel that kind of pain. I'm sorry I'm always an ass to you and I'm sorry about the way I treated you when you were human. You have every right to hate me for as long as we live, which will probably be forever, but at least know I'm sorry."

The blonde vampire stares at him, wordlessly. Her eyes are wide in surprise, but the rest of her face is blank.

Damon, who never regrets or cares about anything that isn't himself or a doe-eyed girl surnamed Gilbert, just apologized to her.

"You raped me," she whispers. She doesn't mean to. Caroline hates to even think about it herself, knows she can't afford to if she has to work with him and be around him, but it's always niggled at her. Damon raped her. She'd been young and terrified and was coerced and manipulated by him. And her best friend, who _knew_ , dated him anyway.

Sure, she'd kicked his ass shortly after turning, but it had been a bravado provided by newfound supernatural abilities. She felt powerful at the time, until she'd gotten home to shower and all the memories flooded her, and Caroline could do nothing but cry, because a boy she'd thought liked her had derided and violated her and that wasn't how it was supposed to be.

And now he stands in front of her with an apology that came far too late on his lips. She doesn't know if she wants to run away from him or cry over him or hug him again or punch him in the throat. He flinched away when she called him a rapist, but now he straightens himself up and nods.

"You're right. I raped you," he states bluntly. "Do you...do you want to do something about it? Like for revenge?" he ends awkwardly. Caroline looks at him blankly.

For a long time, she'd felt broken and hollowed out inside because of him. He used her for an easy blood supply and an easier lay, and made her feel dirty and slutty for it. So she punches him. Right through the gut, her knuckles brushing against his ventral vertebrae, which scrape against her skin. Damon doubles over with an 'oomph' and wheezes, but he doesn't try anything.

Caroline removes her bloodied hand from his insides. "That's how it felt, Damon. Remember that. That's all I want from you."

Soon enough he's healing and standing up, neither of them seeming so out of place with a gored up hand and a gored up Damon. Hospitals were creepy like that.

"How did you find me anyway?"

"Digital locator spell," he wheezes, waving his phone. Caroline frowns. "You tracked me down?" She makes a mental note to turn the locator on her phone off.

"Yeah," he grunts. He grins. "I've got some good news, Care-bear."

* * *

Growing up in his tiny room had been annoying when there was barely enough room for him to stretch, but for some reason he loved it, still loves it now. Probably moreso now, since Bonnie Bennett's head is on his chest, the length of her bare body resting against his. They're both sweaty, but considering his parents had been isolationist freaks, christening his little twin-sized bed after christening the dinner table where he got to be thankful for Bonnie and dine on her was a fantasy come true.

She's obviously satiated now, her breathing deep and slow despite not actually being asleep. Kai picks up one of her hands, pressing kisses against each dainty little digit and she groans. Soon enough, that transforms into him suckling on and nipping at them. His dick starts to swell.

Bonnie must feel it, because she groans again, louder and more whiney.

"You can't seriously be ready to go again?"

Kai simply chuckles, playfully thrusting up. "Aren't you?"

"Ugh," and she sounds so disgusted that his chuckles grow into a full-belly laugh.

The siphon rolls them over to their sides and moves so his face is in hers. Cupping her cheek he pulls her into a deep kiss, pouring all the good feelings he has coursing through him at the moment into it. When he pulls away, she looks breathless.

"Get some sleep, Bon. Tomorrow's a big day."

"Why?"

"Because, I'm excited to see my family again, and we're here at the coven house. I'm going to help you get your magic back," he kisses her forehead. "So rest."

The younger witch throws an arm around his waist and snuggles into his chest and then, like a good girl, obeys.

* * *

Elena grips Stefan's shoulder, hunkering down on the ground next to him where he is glaring out at the nearly empty park. His fists are clenched and his jaw is tight and she rubs a soft circle where her hand is to offer solidarity and comfort.

"Is that Matt?" she whispers. Stefan nods.

"Enzo coerced him into fucking with Sarah," he murmurs. She's mildly surprised at the expletive, but considering the tension running through him, she shrugs it off quickly.

"And who's Sarah?" Elena asks for clarity. She's mildly confused as to what's going on. Stefan sighs sadly, then quickly explains how, during an eclipse in 1994, Damon murdered Zach Salvatore's pregnant girlfriend and how he managed to rescue the baby, whom he kept hidden from Damon and put up for adoption.

Somehow, Enzo had found out about the girl, who had come from Duke University to try and find information about her birth parents. And now Enzo was using her to threaten Stefan. And had roped Matt into helping him do it. The doppelgangers look at each other, quickly coming up with a plan. Stefan rushes out, throwing Enzo into a tree, yelling at Matt to run with Sarah, who is obviously compelled.

Thank goodness, the blonde doesn't hesitate to listen, scooping up the pretty brown-skinned girl and running off. Elena goes to intercept him.

"Matt," she calls. The former quarterback turns to her voice and meets her halfway. The girl over his shoulder is struggling and yelling, so Elena compels her to sleep, telling her she's with friends and when she wakes up she'll be telling them all about the nightmare she had. Sarah drifts off immediately and Elena turns back to her ex-boyfriend, handing him her keys.

"What are you doing here?" Matt questions, even though he sounds relieved.

"I'll tell you later. Just get Sarah away. I'll call you after I help Stefan." She points to where her car is and Matt squeezes her hand in support before taking off.

Enzo had managed to trip Stefan up and was trying to stake him when Elena rushed him and kicked him in the face. The older vampire flew off of him and Elena helps Stefan to his feet.

"Are you okay?" she asks, moments before he whirls her out of the way of a heavy branch that smashes her shoulder instead of her head. Stefan punches past her and she can hear the crunch when it connects to Enzo's face.

The vampire laughs as the former lovers square off to face him, splitting up so each one of them could cover him at a different point.

"Well, well," he chuckles. "I wonder what Damon and Caroline will think of this development? Their significant others, who are former lovers, secretly teaming up? Sounds scandalous."

Elena sneers at him. "Doesn't matter. You won't be alive to spew whatever bullshit is running through your head." And with that, the brunette throws the final gauntlet and the three begin to fight in earnest.

* * *

It's deep into the darkest hours of the night when Bonnie wakes. Her heart is pounding, her throat is parched and even though she doesn't remember what it's about, she knows she just had a nightmare. She looks over at the boy whose limbs are wrapped up with hers, his naked chest rising and falling deeply. He looks young, probably younger than her despite being twice her age.

Disentangling herself from Kai's sleeping form, Bonnie dons his discarded t-shirt and quietly exits the room. She'll grab some water, maybe wander around the Parker house for a bit, before coming back to bed. She just needs a moment to recombobulate.

The kitchen is pretty much as they left it, abandoned food and wine still on the table, easily discernible from the bright moonlight. Bonnie sighs at herself - she can understand Kai's eagerness for sex, considering he'd been isolated for so long. But her own reaction to him is just so...alive. She gets caught up in their moments, forgets that she technically has a boyfriend, forgets that they're moving way too fast. It's scary, but during the times she's with him, from even before their first kiss, he takes over her senses and leaves her reconfigured to him.

Regardless - the kitchen needs to be cleaned, so Bonnie takes a moment to put away all the food and dirty dishes and toss out anything that seems to have already gone bad. It's when she's throwing out trash that she finds the newspaper, crumbled up haphazardly in the trash.

 _ **FAMILY MASSACRED IN PORTLAND**_

 _A community is in a state of shock after four children were found murdered, one left for dead, in their Portland home on May 9th. 'I don't understand,' says a neighbor who wishes to remain nameless. 'They were all such nice kids. Things like this don't happen here.' The oldest brother has been reported as missing from the crime scene - Malachai, aged 22_.

Bonnie pulls the newspaper out of the trash, mindlessly putting down the other things in her hand so she can finish reading the paper under the glaring moonlight. Dread fills her.

She thinks about all the things Kai said to her about having a large family, about the fact that this day is _May 10th_ not May 9th, that Kai had to be lying when he said he didn't know what happened to his family. She thinks about the blood covered hallway. The way he had been so interested to learn about Liv. Panic grips her, her eyes watering. The room spins around her and she feels like she can't breathe.

Kai was...Kai did...oh god. Oh fuck, oh _god._

She had let him inside her. He killed people, children, his _siblings_ and she let him give her pleasure with those same hands that beat kids to death and stabbed his twin. She'd _kissed_ those tainted hands, that lying mouth. Bonnie feels sick. She barely makes it to the sink before the contents of her stomach are crawling out her throat. The newspaper flutters to the ground, discarded.

When she can breathe again, Bonnie comes to a decision. She can't stay here. She can't let him leave. This is his prison and she wasn't going to help him escape.

So under the glowing moonlight, Bonnie flees the Parker house.

* * *

 **Greed: Acquisition is addictive. || Charity: Giving up is numbing.**


	5. Acedia et Industria

**TWs:** Psychological manipulation, violence, BK goes dark. More sex - I hope it doesn't offend due to the setting, but my overall theme for most of my BK fics have to do with Christian values, so PSA when you get to the church part. It's my fave part though, so pls give it a chance. Chaotic evil Enzo. Graphic suicide near the end (2nd fave part, I'm fucked up). Other ships: Parkwood, Stelena, Jolaric, frenemy ( _never_ anything more) Daroline, and mild Marah (ship name pls?) if you squint.

 **AN:** Thanks so much to shadowcatgirl09 for beta-reading! I listened to "Killing Me Softly With His Song" (Roberta Flack, but The Fugees work too), "Tag, Ur It" (Melanie Martinez), and "Drain You" (Nirvana) for all the BK parts if you want mood music.

* * *

" **Truth is Hard to Swallow"**

 _Don't say I didn't warn you_

 _It's a cold world out there_

 _'Cause you know_

 _That when moon comes out at night_

 _Is when the wolves come out to play_

 _And if the mood hits you just right_

 _Be sure you're not the prey_

 _Careful who you run with..._

 _Watch your pack_

 _'Cause when you least expect it that's the moment they'll attack_

 _Clear and present danger..._

 _Chasing thrills._

 _Fighting to survive out here, it's kill or be killed_

 _-Travis Garland; Wolves_

* * *

His roommate isn't in the bed with him and when Kai's eyes snap open, he does a quick perusal of the room. Bonnie's not anywhere to be found, so he gets up and grabs his abandoned jeans off the floor. He can't find his shirt, but he still feels warm and pleasantly groggy from the wine, so he doesn't bother getting a new one.

Leaving his tiny bedroom, Kai calls out for his missing lover. And wasn't that funny? Kai's never actually had anyone he could classify as a _lover_ , just a string of girls he would fuck to get his dick wet and little else.

But Bonnie's different, so the idea of her wandering around the house without him to run interference leaves him mildly anxious. He doesn't know how to twist anything she might find - she's soft-hearted and sympathetic, which he was able to manipulate, but she wasn't stupid. He dreads the idea of her discovering anything he can't control her knowledge of.

She's not anywhere most people would be when they can't sleep. Not in the living room watching a movie. Not in the kitchen grabbing a snack, even though it looks like she passed through, and not outside getting some fresh air when he went out the kitchen door to check the backyard. It's when he's coming back inside, when his angle is different, that he sees what looks like a newspaper stranded on the tiled floor.

Kai freezes, staring. Shit. No. No, no, no, _no._ Please let him be imagining this.

He moves to pick up the paper, sees the headline - _**FAMILY MASSACRED IN PORTLAND**_ \- that the open page displays prominently.

His jaw clenches. The paper in his hand crumbles and he tosses it to the ground, swipes shit off countertops with scream as a rage he hasn't felt in a long time returns to him.

" _FUCK!_ "

The expletive is the perfect summation of everything he's feeling. Fucking outraged, fucking rejected, fucking desperate, fucking lonely. That hits him the worst.

He's never felt as lonely as he had in that moment, to learn that someone he's fixated on, showed as much of himself to as he could more than anyone that wasn't named Josette. And she found out the ugly truth and fled, and while he gets it, he's fucking offended.

Bonnie doesn't get to leave him, not after making him want her, making him actually care. She can't shift his whole fucking world and not pay the consequence for leaving him orbitless without her. Kai won't let her.

* * *

"Why am I here?" Luke snaps at her and Liv has to roll her eyes at her twin's bitchiness.

"Your sugar daddy's gone, you have nothing to do, and you promised me?" she snaps back, mixing up a new water cooler full of Jungle Juice. "Quit whining. Fuck."

Luke glares at her, leaning against the counter where she's working her bartending skills. He grudgingly hands her the next bottle of vodka and ignores her in favor of continuing his tirade.

"What kind of losers even throw parties on Thanksgiving? Don't they have families?"

Liv casts a sardonic eye over him and he shuts up as he realizes that they're technically those losers, not just Tyler and his frat brothers. Not to mention that, as witches, they celebrate more holidays than most people. Besides the party was the day _after_ Thanksgiving, not the actual Turkey Day, so he could shut up. They were just setting up early and, in Liv's defense, being an awesome girlfriend.

At that moment, the former werewolf embraces her from behind, causing a small smirk to bloom on Liv's face, one she has to bite back from becoming a full blown grin. Luke watches the couple with a knowing look in his face and Liv flicks him off.

Tyler pecks her neck. "Thanks, babe," he murmurs. "The guys appreciate your help."

She shrugs, trying to be indifferent, but she's giddy inside. She knows Luke can tell by the way he snorts. Tyler's phone vibrates in his pocket and Liv can feel it against her hip.

He pulls away to answer. "Hey, Matt, what's up?"

The blonde witches look over in concern when he goes quiet, a disconcerting look on his face.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, of course."

Tyler hangs up then, closing his eyes and rolling his head back towards the ceiling. He looks weary and done.

"Shit," he groans.

* * *

Shortly after Matt ends his call with Tyler, he makes a stop at a gas station to buy some cold water and ibuprofen for Sarah. He's a little worried. The pretty woman is sweaty and pasty, her breaths coming too shallow and quick for his comfort. She looks sick and like she's progressively getting worse.

When he wakes her up, her eyes flutter open and she murmurs, "I had the scariest dream."

"It's probably because you're sick," Matt soothes. He helps her sit up and presses two pills to her lips. "Here, take this, you'll feel better."

To his surprise, Sarah takes it compliantly and swallows down a lot of the water before he cuts her off. She squeezes his hand and smiles briefly before closing her eyes again, once more shocking Matt before he remembers she's compelled to think he's her good friend. The recollection leaves a taste like ash in his mouth, even though he's grateful in the moment.

It's then that his phone buzzes, Elena's name and picture lighting up his screen.

"Are you okay?" he greets. "What happened?"

"Yeah, yeah," Elena answers. She has a tone he recognizes from when they were dating, when she was angry but trying to hide it. "Enzo ran off. How's Sarah, where are you?"

"I'm taking her to Tyler's place. The big frat house. She's sick, Elena. I think he gave her something."

Elena curses.

"Me too," Matt sighs. He can hear Stefan say something in the background and then Elena's affirmation rings in his ear.

"Matty," his friend returns her attention to him. "I'm going to call Jo and see if she can meet you at the frat house, okay? Stefan and I are going to look for Enzo, see if we can shake out what he did to her. Call Caroline or Damon -"

Stefan interrupts her at this point, says something that sounds like "not Damon" to Elena and she sighs, world-weary and says that soft "Stefan" that used to slice Matt to pieces. Now he just wonders how she can still call the vampire's name like that and yet be with his brother. It didn't make sense to him.

Elena argues some more with her other ex-boyfriend before Matt just sighs and says. "I'll call Caroline and see if I can get some blood from her to help Sarah until Jo gets to the frat house, okay?"

He can her Stefan's elevated thank you and replies "Sure." Their ex proclaims they're not being fair to Damon, but Matt is with Stefan on this one. He doesn't know the whole sob story, only Enzo's convoluted version, but he knows Damon well enough to understand that there was a reason Stefan didn't want him anywhere near their pretty niece.

Bidding good-bye to the doppelgangers, he hangs up and runs a large hand over Sarah's burning forehead. Her dark skin is seems so bloodless now that she's almost as pale as him. It reminds of when Bonnie, who hardly ever got sick, ended up hospitalized with pneumonia after a swimming accident. He'd never seen his friend look so sickly and pale, and it had terrified him.

That feeling is similar to what he feels now. He splashes a little bit of the cool water on Sarah's face and neck, patting it with his sleeve. Turning away from her, Matt puts the SUV in reverse and backs out carefully, reassuring the unconscious Salvatore all the while.

"Let's get you someplace safe, okay? I'm sure you'd love to lay down in a bed instead of a car."

* * *

There's a checklist he has to get through in his head, before he can follow the pole yanking him in Bonnie's direction. After calming down, he made himself focus, concentrating on that lower gut feeling that pulled him to Bonnie in the first place, was relieved to know it hadn't dissipated with time or proximity but grown stronger. Maybe being in her presence, the constant want he had for her just masked it. He doesn't care, so long as he can find her.

He dresses and tucks only essentials into his pockets: his car keys, the ascendent they came to get, the necklace he still intends to give Bonnie. Outside, he checks the tree stump in the backyard, confirming his suspicions.

When Bonnie had told him the story of how Jonas Martin stole her powers, it made Kai wonder about where his former peer had stored the magic. Holding onto stolen magic organically is hard - the magic will take every chance it can get to leak out of the thief's body and find its way back to it's source. Bennett magic, even from a witch as young and untrained as a late-blooming Bonnie, was no doubt difficult to wrangle.

Jonas would have had to use a conduit that he kept on him, something of the earth that was unliving and latticed. Gemstones were obviously the first choice - the deeper from the dirt it was harvested, the better. But metal worked too, and so when Bonnie mentioned that feeling of having no magic, it reminded him of Jo and how he couldn't sense any within her at all. And then he remembered finding her by the stump, knifeless gut still gushing blood. He remembered the guilty way she looked at him and then the odd way that she immediately offered to merge with him.

Kai's examined the memory a billion times before and a hundred times after Bonnie's little tale, and he's certain Jo had hidden her magic in some sort of conduit - perhaps a large, _metal_ hunting knife? - that she hid in the stump.

And pulling it out now, he can only feel a dull sense of victory at being right. Bonnie was still gone, and he was stinging and enraged at the dwarf girl's absence.

"I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna find you," Kai sings to himself, making his way to his car. He pops the trunk, looking to see if he still had that 10-foot rope he had once intended to hang himself with. It's still there, tucked in beside Bonnie's duffle and backpack, which incites a brand new bout of outrage and rejection in him.

She hadn't even bothered to steal back her shit, she was so quick to get away from him.

Rifling through her things, Kai finds her grimoire and Ms. Cuddles, both which he holds to his chest briefly. The bear smells like her perfume and the grimoire reminds him of their shared witch heritage and the pull in his center of gravity that had guided him to her, still does. He bites the bear's ear and groans because it isn't the same. When he gets his hands on her again, Kai vows to punish her.

In the car, Kai tucks Ms. Cuddles in the passenger seat, using the grimoire as a booster for the stuffed animal and then buckling her in. The clutch was a little stiff when he starts the car, but he was used to the ease in and soon enough he was off. He drove with the fog lights on, not the headlights, enjoying the way he had to rely on his knowledge of the area and the barely there outlines of objects to not hit anything.

Kai migrates. He follows his instinct, let's that sensation, that magic, guide him to the Bennett girl and whatever fallout may occur when they meet up again.

* * *

"They're called prison worlds," Damon informs her, "They require Bennett blood to operate. Sheila went to Portland back in 1994. I'm thinking it was to help the Gemini to create one. Maybe she sent Bonnie there, we just need to go see Abby and get some more info out of her."

Caroline processes everything Damon's just informed her, leaning back in the passenger seat. The drive from Richmond feels unerringly long after Damon's weird apology, but in light of her mother's unfortunate situation, she wants Bonnie back more than ever. Her brows furrow as she thinks of something and she shakes her head.

"I don't think we need to go that far," she tells him. The older vampire looks at her quickly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Caroline starts slowly. Thoughtfully. "Think about it. What witch do we know that comes from a coven in Portland and lied about their abilities?"

Damon's face lights up. "Liv Parker!"

Caroline nods. "And Luke. And we can get to them easily, they go to my school and Liv's dating Tyler. We can call him or stop by the frat house to see if he'll help us talk to her."

Just then her phone rings, blaring out the ring tone she has set for Matt. She mutes the call and lets it go to voicemail, still talking to Damon about how best to confront the twins, but then he calls back and her concern grows. Caroline holds up a hand, quietly commanding Damon to shut up and he gives her an affronted glare.

"Matty?" she answers.

"Caroline, hey! Could you meet me at Tyler's frat house? I need your help."

The blonde shoots a look over at Damon, blue eyes meeting blue in pleased surprise.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"It's better if I explained in person. Please hurry, though!" He pauses. "And don't tell Damon!"

"Uhh," Caroline looks over at the vampire by her side, who's scowling at her ex's declaration. "Okay? Why?"

"It's a long story, but Stefan doesn't want him involved," which aggravates Damon's dirty look further. "See you soon, Care, thanks!"

"You're welcome," she answers softly, hanging up. She's watching Damon.

"So I take it you won't wait in the car?" she checks.

He glowers at her and Caroline sighs, sitting back and looking out the window at the dusky sky. What a long, shitty Thanksgiving day.

* * *

Tyler and Liv help Matt settle Sarah into Tyler's bed, the blonde witch murmuring something about going to make a fever potion before disappearing out of the room. Her twin looks over the unconscious girl with cautious concern.

"What happened to her?" Luke wonders.

"Wayward murderous vamp," Matt replies and the witch nods in understanding. He presses the ice-pack Tyler brought to the room against the sick woman's forehead and sighs, checking his phone. There's nothing new, no alerts from either of his ex-girlfriends to inform him if anyone was on their way. He rakes a frustrated hand through his blonde hair. His best friend notices.

"What's up?" Tyler asks.

"Caroline is supposed to be coming to give Sarah some blood just in case things go bad and Elena's doctor friend is supposed to meet us here to diagnose what's up. Elena and Stefan are trying to track Enzo down to see what he did to her, and I feel useless just sitting here twiddling my thumbs. That about covers it."

Tyler clasps his shoulders. "You did your best man, you're only human."

"That's the problem!" Matt explodes, leaping to his feet. He can see Luke standing up straighter in his periphery, watching him more closely. "We're only human, Ty, and we get caught up in all this supernatural shit and suffer for it _because we're only human_. It's fucked up."

He gestures at Sarah. "Do you think she'd be in this position if she wasn't 'only a human' who got pulled into a vampire's orbit? They ruin everything, Ty!"

Matt doesn't have to say out loud who he really blames for all their lives going south, but he doesn't have to for the Lockwood orphan to understand.

"Dude," Tyler sighs. "Some of our childhood friends are vampires now. I could be a werewolf if I'm not careful. Bonnie was a witch. Elena's a doppelganger whose blood was used in like every ancient spell ever. Our lives were bound to get fucked whether the Salvatores came or not."

Matt looks at him, anger and helplessness flooding his gaze before he swallows and sits down. Tyler and Luke say nothing as he continues.

"This is fucked up, Tyler. We've all died at least once. Bonnie's dead right now unless Caroline finds a way to save her. Things aren't supposed to be like this, our biggest concerns should be about what we're going to do with our lives, not whether or not we'll be alive to live them."

* * *

Seated braless and pantyless in the church pew, wearing nothing but Kai's dirty shirt from the day before, Bonnie stares up at the weeping visage of a crucified Jesus and feels hollow.

She'd needed to seek out some sort of absolution, self-disgust having scraped out her insides like a hungry, rabid wolf. Exhaustion tugs at her downtrodden form, her very bones seemingly too girthy for her body.

Bonnie had fucked Kai, multiple times. She'd liked it. She'd sucked his dick, took it into her body, took his murderous hands and found pleasure and joy from them, spread her legs and encouraged his lying tongue. She can't get over it, how sickened she feels by how much she misses him now that she's run away. She wants to hate him - herself - and when she finds only longing, she's disturbed.

And so she looks at Christ's crying face and tries to find some answer, some punishment for her sins.

Something low in her womb niggles at her, tells her then to get up and run - to greet or to flee, she doesn't know - so, almost instinctively, Bonnie gets to her feet and moves. Soon, she finds herself hiding just behind the steps of the empty cross-shaped baptismal pool, just as the church doors bang open. Bonnie slams her hands over her mouth to prevent herself from whimpering at the loud noise. She understands why the feeling in her core is so contradictory now. She crouches lower, makes herself small.

It's quiet at first. There's a soft thud and Bonnie closes her eyes. She can imagine the way light from outside frames his tall body, growing dimmer as the door falls shut behind him. Then the familiar tone of "Twisted Nerve" rings through the air, slow, heavy footsteps echoing below the rhythm like a metronome. She can picture that too, Kai's steady, swaggering gait, the way he's probably checking each row of pews carefully and thoroughly. Bonnie bites her lip. Suppresses a shiver.

The air is cool on her damp core, the way she's crouched leaving her exposed. Kai's grey "Brooklyn Brooklyn" shirt falls mid-thigh on her short body, but she's squatting in a near fetal position that has the AC and his presence making her uncomfortably aware of her own arousal. Slowly, she moves so that she can press her thighs shut. Kai's footsteps echo like an omen and Bonnie is torn between keeping her eyes peeled at the edges of the pool and keeping them closed as the steps come slowly closer.

 _Please_ , she prays, tightly squeezing her eyes shut once more. Bonnie can't trust herself in his orbit. _Don't let him come any closer. Please, don't let him come up here._ She prays with all her might. Black dots swim in her eyes. Kai's footsteps echo up the altar stage, coming nearer to her hiding spot. He ceases his whistling of "Twisted Nerve".

 _Please, don't find me._

There's no such thing as God in an empty world.

Kai's footsteps stops echoing. A hush captures the church. She knows what she'll find when she opens her eyes. But Bonnie can't bring herself to will them open. Something presses itself softly in her short hair, five points spread out over her scalp causing a prickle. The points sink lower becoming fingers and a palm, suffusing warmth on her head.

Her eyes open. Bonnie looks up and to her right.

Kai's crouched on the top step of the pool's entrance, staring at her. The soft lights that line the bottom edges of the pool give him a gargoyle-like appearance. He quirks an eyebrow.

"Tag," he croons. "You're it."

Bonnie gets to her feet, tries to pull away from him forcefully, but he tightens his grip in her hair, standing up and making his way into the pool. He hits the fill switch as he passes it and lukewarm water begins to pour from the spouts around the sides of the cross. The rush of water would drown out his soft voice if she wasn't so intensely focused on it.

"Ms. Bennett," Kai greets. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Kai."

"Go to hell!" she snarls. She's not playing that game again. He's a liar and murderer. Bonnie can't trust him and he doesn't deserve a do-over. He pauses. Let's go of her hair and stands in front her. Bonnie can see the way his jaw ticks when he clenches it and he looks down.

Bonnie's hackles rise. She can't trust him.

"That's not a very nice thing to say in a church."

"I don't think your siblings thought it was nice when their older brother beat them to death."

A quick grin flashes over his face, then he peers up at her with dark eyes.

"Probably not. Joey kept cussing me out, right up until all the water from our pool filled up his lungs."

Bonnie's lip peels back, disgust and mortification filling her. What a fucking sociopath. He didn't even _care_ , didn't regret anything. She could see it all over his face that he wasn't bothered by the blood on his hands. Kai steps closer and Bonnie straightens her spine, tipping her chin stubbornly at him. She won't let him cower her.

The water stops pouring automatically, leveling off just above her navel and Kai's hips. The hems of both his shirts float slightly around them. The sociopath looms over her petite frame and he grabs at her wrist, making her tense up. Kai leans in, his breath warm at her ear, his low voice traveling like a worm through its canal to her aching pussy. She hates her body, the way it lusts.

She deserves this hell, too.

"Are you going to cuss me out, Bonnie?"

Glaring up at him, she doesn't say anything. But her free hand splashes up from her side, fingers clawed, lashing at his face. Kai grabs it too and uses his weight to bulldoze her into one of the cross arms, hovering over her as she trips back into the wall of the alcove.

"This place is your prison," she spits. "I'm not helping you escape, just leave me alone!"

Kai chuckles hollowly. Bonnie's amazed at how well the sound echoes off the empty chambers of her own soul, matching it feeling for feeling. Kai lets go of her wrists, grips the sides of her head. The hold is too tight, smushing her cheeks, and he's too close when he places his forehead against hers. It's a mimicry of their time in his bed and it stings.

"I can't," he sneers. Her heart sinks. She knows it. She doesn't understand it, but she knows it and loathes it.

"Why?" she asks anyway. Her eyes are glassy, and he thumbs away the tears that brim over.

"You know why" he murmurs.

His eyes stare into hers. They're too dark, the pupils blown wide until the blue-gray is nearly just a thin ring. He squeezes her head tighter, pulling her face up and closer. The wet ends of the t-shirt cling to her now. Her heart hammers so hard that she feels like it will beat on out of her chest. Her gazes flickers between his blackened gaze and the pink lips below them. They stretch into a grin, then crash into her own.

Bonnie bites him, needing to try to fight back in some way, and his fingers fan up, catching the ends of her bob and tugging. It hurts. This isn't love. It won't ever be and Bonnie is mourning the loss of that as she kisses him back, just as hungry and wanting. Her own arms loop around his shoulders, too tight around his neck. Each breath is punishment; each kiss between is torture.

Kai's hands fall from her face, dipping below the water to slide his stolen, wet shirt up her bare thighs. He grips them, hoists her up and her legs wrap around his waist, her back presses more firmly to the pool's wall, the splashing water wetting more of her body. He grinds his wet-jean clad crotch against her naked one, the friction making Bonnie moan.

Water glistens on her legs, gooseflesh breaking out and Bonnie shivers. Her hands run up and down under Kai's jacket and shirt. She tries to will them to stop, but they refuse to comply.

The murderer between her thighs moves his lips away from her mouth, gliding them over her neck. She imagines him with fangs and shivers more. Bonnie wishes he were a vampire, that she could more easily villainize him for his nature. But even most of the vampires she knew showed some remorse for the strangers that fell victim to their hunger, and Kai couldn't even muster up regret for his slaughtered family.

And yet here she is again, welcoming him into her body.

His hands fall between their bodies, unzipping his jeans and tugging his underwear down just enough so that the hard rod at his groin scrapes against her core. She's so wet that not even the baptism water can fully wash away her lubrication, and when his dick slips in her, it's too easy of a glide. His pelvis pulses against hers, the base of his cock flush against her labia, his pubic hair rough on her clit, and she feels wrong, wrong, wrong.

Kai's muttering something against her neck. She hears the words "leave me" and "bitch", and he thrusts harder with each noxious snarl. He sounds angry and sad and confused all at once and his vocalizations reverberate once more with her soul. Bonnie grips him tighter, looking up past his shoulder at Jesus's crying face.

He's crucified. She's fucked. They both lost to the cruelty of others.

The difference is, grace helped Him to rise again.

Something heavy bangs against Bonnie's leg. Kai's fucking into her with abandon now, his dick hitting her in way that aches. She's sore already, but her body pulls him closer, rolls its hips, and runs exploratory digits over his wet body. Kai's fingers press against her clit, rubbing unpredictable patterns on the nub and Bonnie shudders, murmuring his name. The heavy thing hits her again and this time it captures Bonnie's attention and she runs one curious hand against it.

Her heart leaps into the throat Kai's currently bruising with his mouth. She grips the object, raking her hands up Kai's back to distract him from what she's doing. Bonnie stares at the image of the sacrificed son, at the spear wound in his side. And when Kai thrusts up into her once more, when her traitorous body clenches around him in pleasure, milking the seed from his loins - she tightens her grip on the knife, pulls it from Kai's jacket and plunges it, with all her might, just below his bottom right rib, and lets it go.

Kai pulls back from her immediately and she falls without his support, the bottom of the pool scraping her knees. Water splashes at Bonnie's lip. His release leaks out of her, a different type of wet than the water that does its best to wash the cum off of her. The two stare at each other wordlessly. The water around Kai begins to dye red, the soft white light in the pool glimmering between the tendrils of blood. Bonnie stands.

He gasps. "Bon?"

Blood splatters from behind his teeth, turning pink lips vermillion. The red - dark red, like the pomegranate wine he fed her - in the pool disperses more quickly, creeping up the edges of the grey shirt she stole from him. He touches the knife in his side, still staring at her in disbelief. His cheeks puff slightly as he tries to catch his breath.

Tears escape her. She just killed him, and something aches, the same thing that hurt her when he told her about his suicide at Yellowstone. He shakes his head, reaches out a goried hand.

"Don't -"

\- and she doesn't hear the end of the sentence because his body falls back with a splash.

Bonnie runs.

* * *

When Caroline shows up, Damon is hot on her heels, a furious look on his face.

"So what's Saint Stefan's great big secret, _Matty_?" he sneers. Matt shoots Caroline an angry look, who shrugs apologetically but places herself between him and the impulsive Salvatore.

It just so happens that Stefan and Elena walk in seconds later, and Tyler throws his hands up, muttering something about people just barging in. The pair of doppelgangers are dirty and agitated-looking, but Elena takes one look at her boyfriend's face and goes to his side, clutching his arm, but he ignores her. The younger Salvatore is already staring at his older brother in anticipation, who greets him with an ugly sneer.

"Well, Stefan?"

Tyler speaks up just then. "Can we please just go to my room or outside before you two have your pissing contest? This isn't my house, I live with other people."

Caroline backs him up. "He's right. We don't need the extra attention."

Damon looks over at them disdainfully, but he waves his hand in an 'after you' gesture at Tyler. The group follow the former werewolf to his room, which is thankfully huge and without a roommate, likely due to Tyler's political and monetary influence. Luke is there with Sarah and he stands up seeing Damon enter with a stormy look.

"Oh, just who I was looking for," the raven-haired immortal coos, right before he slams the man into the wall. He groans a moment later, his nose bleeding and one hand clutching his head. The other, however, squeezes tighter around Luke's throat.

"Damon!" Elena yells.

There's a flash and then it's Damon against the wall, Caroline's golden hair falling down to settle on her shoulders. Damon has his hands up in a surrender motion, looking up at the ceiling with ticking jaw. The blonde vampire is annoyed, disdainful of the chaos that her partner so idiotically indulged in. She removes the forearm barring Damon's upper body to the wall and pins him with a glare.

"How old are you?" she scoffs. "We'll get there, let's figure everything out first before we start throwing hissy fits."

Damon eases up, leaning against the wall with a scowl and a sharp nod. She turns to face the other occupants of the room.

"Matt, Stefan, what's going on?" Caroline points to the unconscious woman on the bed. "Who is that?"

Both men take a breath and look at each other before Matt begins to explain his day with Enzo and how Enzo used him as bait to stalk the sickly, young woman, Sarah. Stefan picks up then, pinning cold, green eyes on Damon as he explains why he got called by Enzo, how Sarah was actually the daughter of their nephew, "Uncle Zach" and a woman who met an unfortunate end at the hands of a vampire. Caroline doesn't have to look at Damon to know he was the vampire, seeing it all over Stefan's face. She can see Matt, Tyler, and Elena all coming to the same conclusion.

The doe-eyed doppelganger's mouth opens, but Caroline shakes her head at her, meeting her gaze.

 _Later._

 _But -!_

 _This isn't the time for your lover's quarrel!_

 _...fine._

Elena's phone rings, cutting their private conversation short. "It's Jo," she says, looking over at Tyler. "She's the doctor I shadow, I asked her to come take a look at Sarah."

Tyler nods and Elena answers the buzzing phone, leaving the room.

Caroline turns to Matt. "I guess you called for some blood?" The bartender nods and Caroline bites her finger, going over to the sleeping girl. She only gives her a few drops, not wanting to have any adverse effects on Dr. Jo's examination.

As they wait for Elena to come back, Caroline asks Luke if he's okay. When he nods and assures her he's fine, she asks him if he would be willing to answer some questions for her, to help her with Bonnie. She's sure to pin him with pleading cornflower-blue eyes and maybe it's the desperation, or maybe it's that she's a tall, curly-haired blonde with attitude, but the 'no' Caroline can tell is on his lips dies away. Luke nods again.

Elena comes back in with Jo and, to Caroline's surprise, Ric. Tyler sighs and she shoots him an amused grin, which he returns. Jo gets to working on Sarah immediately, checking her vitals, and writing them down. Everyone else disperses around the room, giving her space.

Caroline drifts over to Damon. "Luke said he'll talk to us."

The older vampire nods. "I know," he hesitates, facing her fully. "Look, I'm sorry. I get a little hot-headed." Damon sends her a smirk that, once upon a time, Caroline would have found charming.

Now she just returns it with an unamused gaze and shrugs. "Whatever," she dismisses, turning back to watching Jo work on saving the niece that Damon tried to kill before she was even out of the womb. Caroline sees the way his smile falters, and his gaze falls to the ground. She doesn't really care.

"It took a while to brew but this potion should -," Liv stops talking as she takes in all the occupants of the room that weren't there before. Luke's face gets thunderous.

"Potion?" Jo asks looking over at the blonde witch. Her pretty brow wrinkles. "That smell…," she murmurs. The doctor's blue eyes widen. "That's a Gemini fever potion!"

Luke stands up straight, glaring at the physician. "How the hell do you know that?" he snaps. Caroline and Damon both perk up themselves, keen to understand what's going on.

Jo's gaze volleys between the blonde twins and something horrified passes over her paling face.

"Oh god. Lucas? Olivia?"

* * *

Kai manages to find her before she can get too far, coming up behind her in a Wal-Mart parking lot just as she's climbing into the driver's seat of a car she'd obviously broken into. She's dry and fully dressed in grey ripped jeans, a red hoodie and Sketchers utility boots. Looping a determined forearm around her neck, he drags her out in a headlock, ignoring her cry of alarm and struggling kicks when he slams a heavy hand over her nose and mouth. The chloroform-soaked rag in his palm fills her lungs with its fumes.

He's furious, still soaked and cold from having woken up in a pool of his own diluted blood. Part of him wants to slam her stupid, pretty face against the car until Bonnie looks as broken and ugly as he feels. The rest of him revolts at the notion of doing her such violence.

The siphon tells himself it's because he needs her to get out, but he knows it's more than that. Kai just needs her, needs her to be alive and breathing his air, needs her in his gravity. Bonnie murmurs his name into his palm and he loosens the tight squeeze around her neck even as he pulls her closer. Her struggling comes to a halt and Kai laments to her unconscious form.

"I wanted things to work out better than this, Bonnie. I really like you, but I can't let you get in the way. What a disappointment."

Lying her out on the pavement, he takes the agate leaf necklace from his pocket and loops it around her neck, before slipping off the black backpack he was wearing. Bypassing Ms. Cuddles and the Bennett grimoire, Kai pulls the 10-foot length of rope and a bottle of high strength pain meds from out its depths and gets to work.

He won't be caught off-guard again.

* * *

Humming the tune for "Chim Chim Cher-ee" as he makes his way down the hallway, Enzo nods a greeting to a pretty nurse at the nurses' station as he passes by. She smiles at him, not knowing the handsome new doctor, but likely willing to learn. Enzo wonders what she'll look like naked and bloody, fear frozen on her face and ignores the burning in his throat. Probably quite comely.

His fun with the young Salvatore girl and the busboy had to come to a surprising end due to some scrappy fisticuffs at the hands of one Elena Gilbert. However, considering the fact that he compelled Sarah to drink some hemlock root water, he imagines he'll be wringing more joy from that particular situation soon. The idea of seeing the Salvatore brothers crumble was a salve for his maliciously petty heart. Enzo wasn't quite done with torturing them both just yet, needing to show them that wreaking havoc on their lives - on Damon for leaving him for dead and fumbling the second chance Enzo was willing to give him, on Stefan for just being too annoyingly damn _perfect_ , god Enzo hated him on principle - didn't have to be limited to just wrecking their lives.

No. He could hurt any of their pretty little friends. Caroline, for example.

Standing over the sleeping sheriff's bed, he frowns at her in disdain. Disgusting. Her disease-riddled body reminds him of his own human death and he shudders to remember it. Swiping up the chart, he reads to himself.

"Forbes, Elizabeth. PT has been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Malignant cysts, blah, blah, blah," Enzo drops the chart on the foot of the cot, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He puts it on video-recording mode and sits next to the unconscious blonde woman.

"Sheriff Forbes," he croons. "Wake up, love."

* * *

Fingers tracing the slope from her hips to her waist tease Bonnie awake, and she comes to her senses at a luxurious pace. And then she remembers where she is and who's doing the tracing and she jolts away. Or tries to. There's rope wrapped around her body and she's in the backseat of a car. He's parked and watching her from the front, fingers running circles over her waist and the morning sun framing his head in a halo of light. He's changed his clothes, wearing a black tee with the Nirvana happy face that she recognizes and a clean pair of khaki cargo pants. He's forgone his usual jacket.

The same Roberta Flack song Kai had playing when they drove through Portland fills the air, and hearing the singer croon about pain being strummed by fingers sends a shiver through Bonnie. There's a gag in her mouth and when he gets out of the car, she tries to speak through it, but he shushes her. Opening the backseat, Kai grabs her legs and pulls her towards him. Bonnie winces, the movement jostling her still sore cunt.

"Ollie-oop," he grunts, carefully placing her over his shoulder. "You know, I was hoping to use my Shibari skills on you in a much more enjoyable way than this, Bonnie. You would have definitely prefered it."

She struggles, but damn him, he's freaking huge compared to her, she can't move and she has no magic. Tears bud in her eyes, helplessness - real, unadulterated helplessness - filling her. Kai carts her inside a house and at first Bonnie doesn't recognize it. It had been so long since she'd seen the house decorated like this that, even having come through a few times since landing in this groundhog day world, it takes a while for her to pinpoint where he took her.

The witch looks around, confused. How were they at the Gilberts' house? How long was she out?

Kai smiles. "I told you I could fly remember? But you were naughty, so you didn't get to enjoy it."

Bonnie frowns at him.

He's not...different. At all. He might have knocked her out and hogtied her, but his personality, the way he was acting - it was the same as before. Still playful, still teasing and devil-may-care. Still flirtatious and preoccupied with her. Despite the fact that she had killed him, despite the fact that he had kidnapped her and is now holding her hostage, Kai seems as much the playful boy he was before Thanksgiving. It's even creepier than if he had pulled a complete one-eighty, because at least then she could tell herself to hate him.

But this...she could almost believe they _were_ playing a kinky game.

There's a strong, recognizable smell throughout the house and when Kai seats her on the couch, which is wet and reeking of that scent she looks at him desperately, starting to struggle once more.

"Calm down, shh," Kai soothes, running a light hand over her hair. He puts something soft in her lap - Ms. Cuddles, how did she not notice he had her? - and kisses her forehead. "I told you what I was going to do, remember? We're gonna get your magic back."

His calm unnerves her. Something about his friendliness is empty. The siphon moves away from her and on the coffee table, Bonnie can see the red canteen and next to it, what looks like an unlit Molotov cocktail.

"Mm-mm," she shakes her head. No, god no, she did not want to be part of what he was planning. Not anymore. Kai frowns at her protest.

"It's not like this was the first plan. I was going to help coax it out of you, remove the block through some healing," he wiggles his eyebrows. "That's actually more steady in the long run, ya know? But that whole agenda got shot to shit."

He pulls a lighter out of his pocket, placing it on the table, then grabs up the canteen. Bonnie's terrified, watching him with wide-eyed worry. Pleading isn't working, he gagged her in a way where she couldn't really move her tongue or jaw, making speech useless. All she can do is watch him with glassy eyes and a shaking head.

When he opens the gasoline canister, she expects him to splash whatever he didn't use on the house onto her. But he surprises her once again by up-ending the red can over himself. Gasoline splashes down his back and legs, but his arms and front stay dry. The chemical smell becomes stronger.

Kai shivers. "Jeez, that is cold."

He tosses the can on the couch next to her, then picks up the Molotov and lighter.

"I really hope you get your magic back, Bonnie. I don't want to come back to life to find you dead," he informs her lighting up the small bomb. Bonnie screams through the gag, shaking her head and doing her best to beg him to stop, even as he tosses the bottle at the hard wall.

The bottle shatters. Immediately, flames erupt, spreading quickly, eating up the gasoline. Kai looks at her.

"I won't be able to save you, Bon. So get your magic back, okay? Use the necklace."

He steps towards the fire, which latches on his pants hungrily. It climbs up his height and he lights up. The sight of Kai turning into a human torch hurts her in a way she didn't expect. She struggles against her binds, yelling through the gag. The freaky X-eyed smiley face on his shirt mocks her with its silly tongue. Smoke and the smell burning flesh sting at Bonnie's nostrils. A witch on the stake. The smoke teases tears out of eyes that reflect this boy, this crazy, wonderful boy that she feels something wicked and divine for, go up in flames.

* * *

 **Sloth: Evil prevails when good people do nothing. || Diligence: It is hard to find very active people.**

* * *

 **AN2:** Kai was going to say "Don't cry" before he died.


	6. Ira et Patientia

" **The Things We Lost in the Fire"**

 _If we're only ever looking back_

 _We will drive ourselves insane_

 _As the friendship goes resentment grows_

 _We will walk our different ways_

 _But those are the days that bind us together, forever_

 _And those little things define us forever, forever_

 _-Bastille; Bad Blood_

* * *

Elena's hand is slick in hers as the taller girl pulls Bonnie into the janitors' closet with her. Bonnie utters a quick silencing spell when the door clicks shut and the girls share a look, the simple _I've got your back_ understood doppelganger is squeezing the witch's hand almost too hard, head cocked towards the door as she listens to see if their pursuers are nearby while Bonnie tries to steady her own breathing and heart rate. Her friend's long body is tensed and etched with fear, and just seeing her worried face has Bonnie's magic flaring in response.

They're fucked. Even if the spell keeps Enzo ( _Enzo?_ Bonnie is still in disbelief) off their trail, Kai will sniff them out like some magic bloodhound. If they try to make another break for it, then they run the chance of heading into a trap set by either of the two maniacs. Elena presses her ear closer to the door, listening intently before pulling away.

"I don't hear anything," she whispers. "We should try to escape."

Bonnie bites her lip in a quick second of contemplation, then nods her head in agreement. Potential traps are better than being sitting ducks - Kai will find them eventually, and Enzo will likely be right behind him. The taller brunette listens a bit longer before moving her body in front of Bonnie's and slowly cracking the door open. Bonnie herself has a "modus" on the the tip of her tongue, ready to fling an enemy into the pits of hell but the hallway is empty. The girls step out and look down both ends, standing back to back, before Elena motions for Bonnie to piggyback her.

Once the the witch grips her friend, the other girl takes off, using her speed to get them through the halls. Bonnie wonders if their high school had always been this big and mazelike or if it's the situation that makes its walls seem so daunting.

Elena slows when they near the chained and magically sealed double doors at the front of the school. She lowers Bonnie off her back and moves so the shorter woman can focus on the doors more easily.

Just as Bonnie's eyes close and her mouth opens to utter the first verse of the spell, a sickening crunch echos from just over her shoulder. Her eyes fly open and she turns to find the prone form of her best friend splayed on the floor, hair flung out almost artfully to frame the odd angle of her twisted neck.

The overhead flourescent flickers. A long shadow that wasn't there before suddenly covers part of Elena's body and Bonnie's breath leaves her in a small gasp. Eyes trailing up the dark edges of the shadow, she's surprised to find herself still jolted by the sight of Kai Parker standing before her, looking down at Elena's momentarily dead body.

The siphon heaves a heavy sigh.

"You should have just killed her when I asked you too," he mutters.

Bonnie has no time to give a response before a sharp prick at her neck sends her plummeting into darkness.

* * *

 **Hours earlier:**

Screaming only leaves her throat raw and aching. Bonnie can only guess it's because Kai's screams stole her voice because he doesn't make a sound as he dies. His fiery form collapses, charred, but still burning. Bonnie can only cry, tears and snot leaking down her face and soaking the gag in her mouth.

Panic has seized her in a firm grip and the encroaching blaze only lends it strength. She's going to die here, in this strange purgatory, burned alive and unlike Kai, she won't come back.

The thought is both strangely comforting and hysteria inducing.

Her screams have died down to sobs as she watches the flames spread from the ground zero that was Kai's body, licking it's way up the furnishings. Pictures of Elena, Caroline and herself, of Jeremy as a baby, of Grayson and Miranda as they kiss, of Miranda and Abby, they all crack and shatter and curl and the hot touch. Ms. Cuddles stares up at Bonnie's distraught face. The couch holding her has also fallen victim to it's grip, but Bonnie can hardly see it, so focused on the destruction of memories and love.

And love. Her eyes fall on Kai's ruined corpse, white teeth gleaming in a terrifying grin even as his skin pops and sizzles and fills the air with a smell distinctly like bacon. Bonnie feels sick. Her heart aches in a way too familiar to how she felt when she lost Grams and Jeremy and Rudy. Kai's gone. He's dead.

Kai's dead.

And Bonnie wouldn't _hurt_ like this if she didn't love him.

Another sob escapes her and the warmth that floods her body has nothing to do with the fire that erupts throughout the house with sudden fury.

* * *

Tension fills the room like a storm cloud, dark and heavy and full of negative ions. Luke and Liv stare at Jo, one in disconcertion and the other in suspicion. A mixture of shock and intrigue color everyone else.

Caroline's brow furrows and she shakes her head slightly.

"How do you-?" she starts.

"She's our sister," Luke grits. His perturbed expression has morphed into one of anger. "The prodigal daughter."

Jo inhales rather sharply, looking down. Alaric looks between them and his girlfriend while everyone else stands shellshocked.

"What..?" Elena starts then trails off. Awkwardness fills the room. Jo inhales and seems to brace herself.

"I go by Jo Laughlin now, but I was born Josette Parker. I was born a witch in the Gemini Coven."

Liv grins sardonically, her mood seeming to match her twins now. With a scoff, she counters Jo.

"I remember," she mutters. "That's not all you were born to."

She turns her back on her sister and heads to the feverish young woman on the bed. "Drink this," Liv murmurs as she attends the woman and helps her drink the potion. Sarah seems to glow for moment moment before the fever immediately settled and Liv helped her lie back down..

Jo sighs, watching the younger, then launches into an explanation. About the Gemini coven, about their tradition of twins 'merging', about how she and her twin brother Kai were supposed to merge on their twenty second birthday, but then Kai turned out to be something called a siphon that the Gemini deemed repulsive and an ill fit for coven leader. Luke and Liv were conceived after several attempts as a means to replace the elder twins.

"Eventually," Jo continues. "Kai realized nothing he did would convince our coven to give him a chance and he snapped. He killed four of our brothers and sisters to make a point: if he couldn't be the coven leader, no one could."

Luke spoke up then, "The day after the attack, Kai was sent away to a prison world by our coven." His voice hardens. "And a week later, our older sister disappeared too."

The physician winces and faces her younger brother. "I understand why you might be upset with me, Lucas, but I wasn't a witch anymore and being in that place only hurt me. You and Olivia seem close - Kai and I were like that too, once upon a time."

Something in her inflections must have resonated with Luke because his expression softened and whatever retort he had on his tongue died. Liv swallowed, once, twice and looked between her siblings before turning back to the sick woman in the bed.

Seeing that the family drama had died down and everyone not involved in it was awkwardly standing around, Damon speaks up about what's been on his mind.

"This prison world," he starts. "Did Sheila and Abby Bennett help you make it?" Luke and Liv look confused, but Jo looks stricken.

"Sheila did. The Bennetts were family friends," Jo replies. "Abby didn't come because she wanted to keep her daughter away from Kai."

Damon nods. "Would it be possible for a dead Sheila Bennett to access this prison world?"

Luke frowns. "Theoretically? I know that to get to the prison world you need at least two essential ingredients: the Ascendent to that world and Bennett blood, and possibly a celestial event to draw power from. But spirits don't have the same limitations on their magic that we do, so...yeah?"

He looks between Jo and Liv for confrontation, who both nod.

"Why are you asking?" Liv inquires.

This time, it's Caroline who launches into an explanation, explaining the research she and Damon have been doing and the contact in Portland that helped them infiltrate private Gemini archives that had information about the prison worlds.

"What?!" Luke and Liv snap. "Who?" Liv demands.

"Never mind your pretty little head, Goldilocks. The point of all this is that Bonnie might be trapped in this little prison world with Kai," Damon concludes. Caroline nods.

"Guys," Luke says gently. "Bonnie's dead. She passed on when the Other Side collapsed."

"Except we don't know that for sure," Caroline counters. "Grams told Bonnie that she made sure Bonnie would be able to find peace, except Bonnie didn't know exactly what she meant. I'm sure there are many Bennett witches on the Other Side who would have helped resurrect Bonnie and send her to this alternate world."

"Prison world," Jo mutters. Luke shakes his head.

"That's just a theory. And even if she did end up there…," he trails off.

Caroline's eyes dart between the Parker siblings. "What?" she demands. "Even if what?"

"It's been months," Liv interjects. "There's a chance Kai's found her if she did end up there. And if so then she's a goner."

" _You_ don't know that," Damon snaps. "Can't we just look at least? We pop in, see if she's there. If she is, we snag her. If she's not, we bounce."

Liv bites her lip, brows furrowed, but Luke shakes his head. "Know any other Bennetts? And aside from that, we would have to sneak the 1994 Ascendent from our dad."

His blonde sister winces, but Jo chimes up. "No, you don't. I have it."

Everyone turns to look at her.

"Jo?" Alaric speaks up for the first time. "You know the risk involved with this."

Jo sighs and faces him.

"Kai stabbed me and left me for dead. I was the closest person to him. I can imagine what he'll do to coerce Bonnie into helping him and it's not pretty," she faces Damon. "If you can get Bennett blood, I can provide the Ascendent and teach Luke and Liv the spell needed to access the prison world. A planetary adjunction is coming up and we can use that to power the spell."

"Jo, no," Alaric counters. "What if this goes bad? What if Kai somehow gets out? You could be in danger, you and your siblings, I can't support this."

Damon frowns at him, then at Tyler who murmurs his concurrence with the professor, citing the danger to Liv. "Seriously?" he grunts. "After all Bonnie's done for us, you're just going to leave her to the whims of a madman?"

"You don't even know for sure if she's there, Damon!"

"You don't know that she isn't, Ric!" Caroline jumps in.

"I agree with Caroline and Damon," Elena chirps up. "It's at least worth a look to confirm."

"No, no ,what? Have you guys all lost your minds?" Luke snaps. "It's a _prison world_ for a reason, Kai's dangerous."

Cacophony breaks out before Liv shouts them all down. "Shut up! Shut up!"

"Look," she continues. "Bonnie is a Bennett. There's an Ascendent in the prison world. We _need_ to look."

"Liv," Tyler starts, but his girlfriend interrupts him.

"No, I'm serious. I appreciate your concern Tyler, but it might be too little to late."

"What do you mean?" Stefan finally asks, and it startles everyone into silence to hear the quiet Salvatore break his.

"What she means," Jo says into the quiet. "Is that there's a good chance Kai might already be out or about to escape anyway."

* * *

There is buzzing in her ears and soft fluttering on her cheeks when her mind breaches consciousness once more.

"Bonnie? Bonnie!" the sound is distant...muffled. Her name comes at her through a fog, flits against her eardrum like a ghost.

 _Bonnie? Bonnie!_

God. Fuck. Her head is killing her.

The soft fluttering on her cheeks gains intensity in it's pressure and her form is shaken lightly. Hands. Those are hands on her face.

"Bonnie, wake up! You did it, you got your magic back Bonnie, wake up! Please, Bonnie!"

Her eyes flutter. A blurry figure is in front of her and her brows furrow as she tries to focus. There's a cackling noise in the air and the heat is far too oppressive for May, even in Virginia. Bonnie sits up and the warm hands migrate from her face to her shoulders, helping her balance. Where is she? Wasn't she tied up? How is she alive?

Head pounding, Bonnie registers the hands still propping her up and focuses on the blurry figure in front of her.

Kai's face fills her view and soon Bonnie is scrambling to her feet and away from him. He looks up at her from where he's still squatting on the ground and Bonnie runs her eyes over him. The Gilbert houses crackles behind him, still burning, and the hazy smell of burning wood hits her nose. How did they get out of that? Was it real? Or some kind of lucid dream? The magic thrumming through her cells answers her. Bonnie focuses on Kai once more. He's dressed again, in jeans and an open blue hoodie over bare skin. He looks...good. His eyes are so bright and his breaths are so loud and his skin is so smooth. He's so _alive_ and Bonnie finds herself wrapping around him when he stands.

Her embrace is immediately received, his own arms clamping around her small form. The green agate necklace at her throat is warm and Bonnie doesn't know if it's leftover from the flames, the magic she feels thrumming under her veins, or Kai's body heat. Her hands roam over the broadness of his back, echoing the motions of his, and it thrums through her head again. _He's okay. He's alive._

"You're so powerful," he murmurs. The press of his hands hardens. A chill runs down Bonnie's spine from where his fingertips touch her. "I could get full off you."

It's a rude awakening. This man is a killer. This man tried to use her. He kidnapped her. He tried to kill her. The house on fire behind him is evidence of it all. She pushes him away roughly and he stumbles back. The image of him going up in flames replays in her head and Bonnie is seized with fury.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she screams. Kai glares back at her. She feels trapped under his malicious gaze.

"Me?" he laughs, stepping into her space. "What about you? I'm trying to free you, Bonster. Let them go."

"What are you talking about?" she spits back.

"I want to leave, Bonnie! Don't you? You're friends, those people that you died for, that you put on a fucking pedestal, that you secretly resent, where are they, Bonnie? Do you see them? Because I don't!" He moves in even closer, crowding her. His voice falls quiet, the next few words little more than a whisper. "They left you for dead, Bon. Let them go."

Bonnie squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head, a tremble of a motion.

"No," she mutters.

"Why not?"

"I can't!" Bonnie shoves him away.

The conversation lulls in the wake of her outburst.

"I can't," she starts to cry and she hates herself for being so weak in front of him. "They're my friends."

"Then where are they?" he indicates the vast, empty world around them. The crackles and pops from the burning Gilbert house act as background music to his voice.

"Where are they when you need them?" Kai asks.

She pushes him again and he lets her rage against him until her tiny hands ball up and start to rain down on his chest. Then he grabs her wrists and pulls her closer until their chests brush. Kai wraps himself around the smaller witch, caressing her back as she sobs onto naked chest. She feels unhinged and uninhibited by her furious grief.

He rests his cheek against the top of her head.

"They're not here, Bonnie. But I am," he strokes the length of her back like a pet, probably seeking to soothe her. "Let's just go home."

Her tears slow to hiccups, her hands clutching the back of his hoodie while her face burrows in his sternum. She's awed by how much comfort she can still derive from him - she's on the cusp of hating him, both for his past and for his ruthlessness in tearing down her naivete, but he also feels like the only real thing she knows.

With the same hand he used to kill children, he grasps her chin, his palm brushing against her neck in mimicry of the way he choked her when she ran. Her breath hitches when she raises her eyes to meet his after he tips her head back. They're glassy, tracks of black from the mascara-polluted tears that managed to escape decorating her cheeks. His lips press against the lines and she can feel the warmth of his tongue as he kicks them away.

Kai kisses Bonnie's mouth next, a gentle thing compared to the savagery his lips usually left on her neck. She can taste the salt of her tears in his kiss. She can also taste her defeat before she nods in agreement.

"Let's go home," she murmurs against his mouth.

* * *

Caroline and Damon wanted to leave for the prison world as soon as they learned about it. Both sire and progeny had a feeling of completion, were sure that their search was reaching its end. Everyone else convinces them that preparations need to be made and that time is needed. This news is easier for Caroline to swallow, but Damon only concedes to the few days since they have to wait for a celestial event.

The room had gone quiet after Jo's terse announcement, before Luke nods with a sigh. "Okay. Jo can teach us the spell. The planetary adjunct is supposed to be the day we merge, but Liv and Jo can distract dad while I take you to the prison world."

They then come up with a plan, then disperse for the day, Damon casting one last look at the sickly girl in Tyler's bed. For a minute, she looks like someone else, but then he blinks and he can see that the resemblance is only there because her current state of being resulted from his fuck up. Just like Bonnie.

That night, lying in bed, Damon could hardly sleep. He dreamt about Bonnie and the hug they shared right before she disappeared in his arms. The dream happens for the few days before they can go. Tyler's frat throws their stupid little party and Caroline attends to burn off nervous energy. Damon lies in bed, tries to catch up on sleep he didn't really need, but his mind demanded. He tightens his grip on the sheets and promises himself that if Bonnie's okay, he's going to lock her in a padded room if it keeps her safe.

Damon still has blood on reserve from Lucy, back from when she offered some up for potential locator spells, so the day of the trip, he snags a few vials from Stefan's place and meets his brother and his girlfriend at the crypt with it. Caroline arrives with Luke a few moments later and Damon looks him over with a dour eye.

"Wicked Witch of the East doing her part?" he asks the shorter man, who gives him a dirty look.

"She went back to the frat house to meet Jo," he answers. "To help our dear long lost sister take care of the niece you tried to abort before they go meet our dad and break the news that there will be no merge tonight." Damon's face darkens and he takes a step, but before he can reach the midget, Stefan grips his arm and Caroline shoots him a look.

"Hopefully he'll be willing to wait for the lunar eclipse tomorrow, considering that finding his long lost daughter should take priority," Luke finishes.

"There's a lunar eclipse tomorrow?" Damon asks. Luke nods. "Full moon too. End of the year is full of celestial events."

Damon serves a smirk that's more a grimace than anything else and reaches into his pocket. He holds a vial with Bennett blood in it.

"Whatever," the Salvatore mutters. "Your sister give you the device?"

Luke pulls out the Ascendant, a circular device that looked like a bunch of clock cogs. "Right here.."

"Great," Damon fists the vial. "Well, we're all ready. Let's roll."

Luke frowns at this and looks at the assembled group. "You're not all going."

Elena speaks up. "To rescue our best friend? Yeah, we are."

"Uh, no, you're not," the blonde snarks back. "First of all, we don't even know if Bonnie is in my brother's prison world. Neither do we know if she's alive. And if she is both of those things, I'm not bringing all of you with me when I have to cart her back. Two other people, work it out amongst yourselves."

With that, he turns away from the group and begins to do...something with the Ascendent that makes it look like he's aligning it with something in the sky, ignoring the vampires.

"I'm going," Caroline announces. Her firm tone allowed no arguments. "I didn't spend all this time looking for a way just to sit out the home stretch."

"In that case, I'm going too," Damon speaks up. Elena looks ready to protest but Stefan's quelling hand on her shoulder quiets her.

"We'll hold down the fort here, make sure everything is safe. We still don't know where Enzo is, and we don't him dropping by to mess anything up."

Elena makes a face but nods in agreement. She looks to Caroline with a soft smile. "Go get our sister back, Care-bear."

The blonde nods and with a shared look with Damon, the two vampires move to join the witch who was finishing his odd run around. He looks at them and waves them over.

"This is a good spot, and about as close to Mystic Falls as we can get you two. Hopefully, we'll be able to transport into town from here."

"Get close," he dictates. Caroline and Damon do, standing together uncomfortably close, and watch him as he pulls the Ascendant out of his pocket and joins them in the circle.

"Stay close and hold on. This is our portal, so if you don't wanna lose any limbs..." He holds out his open palm with the Ascendant in it and continues. "The Ascendant doesn't travel, so when we get there, I'm going to do a locator spell with the rest of the Bennett blood, then find the prison world's copy while you two look for Bonnie if she's there. If not, we'll just find the Ascendant and leave."

The vampires nod.

"Don't let go of me," he instructs them. "Damon, pour the Bennett blood on the device."

Once Damon does this, the warlock starts chanting in the sacred language. " _Sangima mai erma, Ascendamum caveia._ "

Wind picks up around them. Damon grips Caroline with his free hand, makes sure her grip on the chanting witch is as firm as his. There's a sucking sensation, like being pulled by a vacuum, or being beamed up by aliens. Damon feels like he's coming apart at the seams and squeezes his eyes shut.

When the sensation dwindles and his eyes open, he finds himself looking around a dimly lit underground cave. The vampire drops his arms from the other two and steps away, observing. The three of them were standing in a circle of light from the open ground above them. Luke frowns up at it, then looks around as well while Caroline watches him.

"Did it work?" the blonde vampire asks the blond warlock. The man frowns at something that catches his attention. He bends over and picks something up.

A bloodied Ascendant. Exactly like the one they left behind at the crypt.

Caroline inhales sharply. "That's Bonnie's blood," she whispers. Luke's gaze flicks over to her.

"Are you sure?" he asks.

Damon touches the semi dried blood on the cogs, the tacky substance sticking to his fingers. He places it to his tongue.

"Yeah," he affirms. "She's sure."

"Fuck!" Luke explodes. Yanking a map out of his back pocket, he lays it open and quickly cuts his finger on what looks one of his bracelets. Damon watches him in anticipation as he spills the blood on the map and chants in quick sequence. Nothing happens.

"I think you're doing that locator spell wrong buddy, nothing's going on," he jokes. God, he hopes Luke did the spell wrong.

Luke's eye fly open and he stares at the map. "No," he says. "I wasn't doing it wrong. Kai's not here."

* * *

"Chim-chimney, chim-chimney, chim chim, cher-ee. A sweep is as lucky as lucky can be," Enzo sings softly, watching the dramatics of the Scooby gang as they argue about going to some alternate dimension to save Bonnie. The misinformation makes Enzo smile.

Little do the would-be heroes know, their quarry is right under their nose.

The Augustine vampire thinks back to the run-in he had the Friday night after Thanksgiving, the shock at seeing the little witch in the street on his way back from the hospital. She'd been hitch-hiking with a young man who had a tight grip on her wrist, a blank and almost dead expression on her face. A part of Enzo had wanted to take his pound of flesh from Bonnie as well, but something about the slightly unhinged man attached to her staved him off. However, curiosity and excitement quelled Enzo's need for retribution and enticed him into friendliness.

Enzo had pulled over for them.

With a smirk, Enzo watches the rescue group vanish, then turns away. There was much to do today.

* * *

It seemed like Stefan and Elena had only just settled down to wait when the trio reappear in the spot they vanished from mere moments before. The two jump up as Damon and Caroline approach. Luke sits down on the ground to do something, muttering under his breath, but Elena can't pay attention to him, too busy scanning the group for the face she didn't see.

"Where's Bonnie?" Elena asks. "She wasn't there?"

"No," Damon grits. "And neither was the inmate. They escaped."

Some mixture of relieved elation and dread bottomed out in Elena's belly. Bonnie was alive. Bonnie was also hostage to some madman who slaughtered his own family.

"Oh god," the brunette breathes. Caroline nods in agreement.

"We need to find them," she says.

"Can't," Luke speaks up. He balls up a giant wad of paper - a map, Elena realizes - and stands. "The blood just evaporated. He's blocking himself. He must have used her magic or coerced her into doing a barrier spell."

"What about locating Bonnie?"

Luke levels her with a look. "From what I remember, and from what Jo said, big bro's not exactly an idiot. A psycho hothead, maybe, but not dumb. If he's blocking himself and Bonnie's with him, I can guarantee you she's blocked too."

"So what do we do?"

The witch sighs. "Regroup, I guess? I'll call Liv, but…," he trails off, thinking.

"But what?" Stefan asks. Luke heaves a sigh and rubs his temple.

"We need to call my dad. Kai's a Gemini prisoner and if he's escaped and holding a Bennett witch hostage, that's definitely Gemini business. I can't keep that from the coven."

"And Bonnie? Unless they can help us get her back, your freak family is only going to get in the way," Damon snaps. Luke's face sours, as does Caroline's, but Stefan is the one to speak up.

"Look, regardless, we need to regroup. Let's go back to the frat house and fill in Liv and Jo. We can figure out where to go from there."

As the others agreed, Elena looks around. The dread that touched her earlier has overcome the relief she felt at learning the truth. Now that she knows, concretely, that Bonnie is alive, guilt burns at her. The part of her had run on the belief that Bonnie did die is usurping. The belief that she had moved on and found peace and joy and happiness, that if anyone deserved paradise it would be Bonnie is shattered.

Her friend is alive. Her friend, the best person she knows, died for them, again, and even then she was whisked from a true death only to suffer more.

Following behind the rest of her friends, Elena vows to herself that if it was the last thing she ever did, she would make sure that Bonnie lived a long, safe, and _happy_ life.

* * *

She'd been weak, beyond weak actually when she opens her eyes. She's in a place she doesn't recognize, an IV stuck in her arm. Someone is leaning over, her petting her hair. They're humming a familiar song, something childish. A sharp sting in her arm makes her flinch and she moans, trying to speak. The humming stops.

"Sarah?"

Her eyes flutter. Someone's calling her name. They heard her. She tries to swallow.

"Wa-," a cough interrupts her.

"Water? No, problem love."

A frown mars her pretty face. Accent. Who does she know with an accent?

Fighting to keep her eyes open, Sarah focuses on the voice.

"Who?"

"Shh," the voice hushes her. Something warm touches her lips.

"Drink up," the accented voice tells her. "You're going to have a long day."

As Sarah obediently sips the warm liquid and slips back into unconsciousness, she suddenly recalls the song. It's from Mary Poppins.

* * *

When they get back to the frat house with their bad news, they're not expecting to hear more. Quiet chaos seems to be vibrating off of Tyler when he greets them at the door.

"Hey, don't you have a class now?" Caroline questions, somewhat confused to see Tyler at a time when the house is usually empty.

"My room. Now," he grits. "It's Sarah."

The quintet share a look, then speed upstairs, where Sarah is seizing out on the hospital cot that Elena and Caroline stole from storage for here. The equally stolen heart monitor is beeping wildly.

"Oh my god," Elena says and rush over to help her mentor.

Spittle and vomit froth at Sarah's mouth and Elena helps turn the young woman to her side and hold her steady so that she wouldn't choke or fall. This allows Jo to work more efficiently after snapping that someone should call for an ambulance.

Before they can, the lost Salvatore stops spasming and the EKG emits a loud, constant ring. Everyone freezes, except for Jo, who is in doctor mode and snaps at Elena to move the girl to the floor for CPR.

As Jo pumps Sarah's heart and breathes air into her lungs, Elena has to step back. The scene is too similar, too much, a pretty black girl dying for circumstances she got tragically pulled into. Elena can't. She needs to go.

Caroline is hanging up with the emergency operator, so Elena says she'll go wait for the EMTs outside. Outside, where the air is lighter. Easier to breathe. Tragedy and regret don't pollute it. Elena closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

When she opens her eyes on the exhale, she finds Enzo standing before her, leaning back against the trunk of a park car she hadn't noticed when they first arrived. She wonders exactly how long he's been there staring.

"Rough day, darling?" he questions. "First 'Operation: Rescue the Witch' goes sour and now it sounds like poor Sarah didn't make it."

Rage surges through the doppelganger. "What did you do?" she snarls. "She was fine before." Enzo smirks.

"Oh, I was just sending you a message. That up there? Is exactly what will happen to her."

With that he opens the trunk and reaches inside, pulling up Liz Forbes, bound and gagged and unconscious, by her thinning blonde hair. Elena steps forward, ready to end him, but Enzo clucks and stays her with his next words.

"Not so fast, doppelbitch. I'm giving you a choice here. Choice A," he shakes Liz gently before letting go of her hair. The unconscious woman falls back into the trunk with a thump.

"You get the lovely Sheriff back, with no resistance from me. Or choice B," he stands straighter now and his smarmy, smug grin is back. Elena wants to break it with her fist. "B for Bonnie. I'll show you where to find her."

Elena frowns. "How do you-?"

"I'm not answering your asinine questions, dear. Make a choice or I'll take both away," Enzo interrupts. The smile that blooms across his face now might even be considered charming if not for the vile context behind it. "So what's it going to be, hm?"

* * *

 **Present:**

It's the second time this day that Bonnie has come to in her old high school, but this time, she's dressed in her old cheerleading uniform. Her head feels fuzzy, cotton-stuffed and heavy, no doubt from whatever shit Enzo shot her up with when he and Kai recaptured her and Elena earlier. Mouth dry and tongue heavy, she does her best to swallow fuzziness down. Blinking the Timberwolves' colors into focus, she gathers her bearings.

She's in the school cafeteria. Across from her, Elena is slumped over, tied to a bench of one of the picnic-style tables. Bonnie can smell the vervain in the air. With a soft grunt, she cricks her head and looks about the room. The room is empty aside from her unconscious friend and herself and Bonnie tries to utilize the privacy to enchant herself free.

It's a no go: she's dry. Kai must have siphoned her while she was unconscious.

Bonnie licks her lips and looks around once more. Seeing the coast was clear, she hisses softly.

"Elena!" The doppelganger is unmoving. When hissing her name again yields no response, Bonnie toes off one of her sneakers and very carefully aims it at her friend. This causes the other girl to _finally_ stir. Blinking away confusion, the brunette lifts her head and Bonnie can see the gag in her mouth. The two make eye contact and Elena's eyes widen before she tries to surge forward toward Bonnie. Vervain soaked ropes pull her back and Bonnie winces in sympathy at her friend's grunt of pain.

"Careful," a voice calls out. "Wouldn't want to hurt yourself."

Hearing it surprises both women and their heads simultaneously swing to a once empty seat adjacent to both of them that was now occupied by Kai. Where the hell did he come from?

"Evening ladies," he chirps in a mock theatric voice. "Welcome to 'Would You Rather? Mystic Falls Edition'! I'm your host Kai Parker."

What he says clicks in Bonnie's head and she casts another glance at Elena. How is she here, in their old school? What the fuck happened these past few days? Most of it was a blur, if it was there at all.

"Kai," she redirects his attention. "What are you doing?"

The siphon smiles at her beatifically and it almost breaks Bonnie's heart to fight back the reflex to smile right back. As much as she hates it, she still yearns deeply for him. The past few days haven't been enough to dig him out of her system.

"Glad you asked, gorgeous. See, I'm pumped full of too much magic. The magic from that barrier spell around town I siphoned - you're welcome B-T-W," he directs at Elena. "B-T-W. I love internet lingo, it's so efficient.

"Anyway, I've got the Travellers' spell and the magic I keep having to siphon from you just leaking out of me like a broken faucet and I need to practice for the merge I'm going to force my lovely sister into tomorrow. And you're going to help me, Bonster. I'm going to offer you two choices and whatever you pick is what I'll do to Elena."

Bonnie frowns at him.

"I'm not doing that." To her surprise, he doesn't appear upset by her words. Instead he just smiles at her fondly and it throws her off.

"Ever the good witch," he murmurs. He reaches across the space between them and pushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "It's why I took precautions. See if you don't help me, my new friend Enzo? He has _your_ friend's mother. The sheriff? Right Elena?"

Even though the question is directed at her, Kai continues to stare at Bonnie. At least Bonnie has one of her questions answered now. After a brief hesitation, the brunette across from Bonnie grunts in agreement.

"See?" Kai continues. "If you don't agree to help me practice, your buddy's mom gets to meet her maker a bit early. But if you _do_ help me, after I win the merge, I'll save her life. Elena doesn't mind being a practice dummy for such a good cause, does she?"

Again, the doppelganger grunts in agreement, glaring at the hand he has yet to remove from Bonnie's cheek.

"So what do you say, Bon? Deal? I even put you in your old cheerleading uniform, just like you promised me, to make it more fun."

 _If he was_ good. _He's crazy,_ Bonnie thinks. _He's really, truly fucking nuts._

"I shouldn't have let you go," she murmurs. Kai shifts, tilts his head curiously and finally returns his hand to his side. Elena exhales audibly. "This is my fault. You're going to go after your family. You're hurting innocent people, people that don't have anything to do with any of this. If I don't stop you, they're going to die."

"You're cute," he says with a smile. "You try so hard to be good, even when none of it matters in the end, when everyone, regardless of the choices they make, ends up as nothing but rot in the ground. You're like a Norse god during Ragnarok."

Kai chuckles, tossing his head back. Bonnie watches him as though he were a venomous snake as the laughs come to a stop. He stares hard at her.

"Stop trying to own my choices, you little thief. What I do is what _I_ do." He rubs his hands and stands up.

"So, ready to play?" the siphon starts. "Would you rather I turn Elena's blood into acid or boil her eyeballs out of her skull?"

* * *

 **Wrath: Anger leads to hate and suffering. || Patience: It's tiring always having to wait.**

* * *

 **A/N** : 3 more chapters left after this. Next chapter will have a big flashback from Kai's POV explaining what happened between the PW and the opening scene of this chapter. Things will start to be wrapped up.


	7. Invidia et Humanitas

**WARNINGS:** Violence. Chaos. Enzo is still OOC bc I find every version of his canon incarnation about as appealing as getting lobotomized with toothpicks...by a toddler. Kai is cuckoo for Coco Bons, and mad jealous of Bonlena. Fic is still dark.

" **It's Not So Dreadful Here"**

 _People want you underground  
Do you misbehave?  
Haunt you to your grave  
I'm going to eat you alive  
Please don't find me rude  
But I don't eat fast food  
So don't run too fast_

 _Just hide, oh!  
You know that you're the one,_

 _That's terrified_

 _\- Childish Gambino; Terrified_

* * *

 **Friday after Thanksgiving, 1994 Prison World**

"Let's go home."

She says it against his mouth gently, a ghost of a sentiment, but Kai's grin grows in malicious triumph as he pulls his mouth away. Forehead pressed to hers, the siphon searches her eyes for any signs of deceit, but he only finds her tired acceptance.

"I'd love to."

The newly reawakened witch lets him lead her to the car, silent the entire time. A part of Kai is disturbed by her quiet compliance, more paranoid than worried. But her eyes are glassy and every now and then she rubs her hands over his jacket sleeve, like she can't believe he's real. Like she has to reassure herself, and that puts Kai...not at ease, just not so ready to spring on her in attack. Violence runs thick in his veins, and he'll turn it on her if he must. He still doesn't trust her, not after she kept running like she did and not after she killed him in the baptism pool.

 _Don't cry_. He'd wanted so badly to tell her, to lick the tears from her pretty little cheeks. To bite them off her face. _Don't cry,_ which is odd because he thinks she's loveliest when she's distraught.

Mistrust isn't antipathy and Kai is still very interested in keeping her.

Turning himself into a human blaze worked like a lovely little charm and her magic radiates from her like a second body heat. It feels gloriously puissant; dense and heavy like it carried it's own matter, biting like a beast. Kai wants to eat it as much as he wants to tame it as much as he wants to watch it run wild, and isn't that funny considering that's exactly how he feels about the woman it emanates from?

He says nothing either, not the entire way to the caves, not that it takes long to reach them once they've parked by the wooded road. Bonnie watches him distantly as he gathers their things from the trunk and pulls the Ascendant from his pocket, lets him hold her hand as he uses the magic astrolabe to find the spot they need to portal jump through. Her zombie-like apathy, which had been satisfying moments ago, is becoming annoying and Kai wants to do something, anything, to jolt her back to life.

So he siphons her.

It's like he struck Bonnie with lightning. With a gasp, she seems to jolt back into herself, Frankenstein's monster coming to life, and there he is, the Victor.

"Stop," she pants, tugging at her hand. Kai ceases draining her, but his grip tightens harshly. Using the magic he took, he opens up the ground at their feet. They stare at each other, and for the first time since she agreed to leave with him, he can feel her anger rising off her like steam, matching the temper that had been simmering below his own chest. There she is, that plucky girl from before.

He wanted to break her, yeah, if only to put the pieces back together as he liked.

"Let's go, Bonster," he says with his friendliest smile. "We're running out of time." She glares at him, shirking away when he grips her elbow and leads her underground.

"I don't know the spell," she says as he guides her and his smile turns cold. Rounding into her space, he looks down at her stubbornly tilted chin and yes, yes. His girl is back and being a bitch. Kai can feel his cock twitch in earnest want.

Leaning in, he whispers into her ear, "I know you're lying."

"I'm not," she insists and with an eyeroll, Kai cuts through her bullshit. He's out of patience.

" _Sangima mai erma..._ "

Bonnie's breath catches. Kai smiles to himself, and pulls back so she can see his crowing delight.

"Either you do the spell like you promised, Bonnie or I'll drag your unconscious body through the wormhole like a ragdoll. Your choice." Kai holds up the Ascendant and gives it a little shake to emphasize his point. Bonnie eyes it in contempt and Kai can see the cogs turning in her head.

"Don't, Bon," he interrupts her thoughts. "Don't do anything to make me angrier at you."

She hisses, like angry kitten, and it would be almost cute if Kai wasn't aware of the tiger beneath that angel face.

" _You're_ mad at _me_?" she snarls.

"Of course. You killed me mid-bust - that's not nice at all, just so you know - then you made me chase you all over Portland."

"You're a psychopath!"

"Sociopath," he corrects bluntly. "And so what? Actually, no." He looks up. "We don't have time. You can cuss me out after we're in the twenty-first century."

He tugs her under the hole above them, directly under the sun that would soon be eclipsed. Bonnie glares at him, yanking her arm away. She looks mutinous. Kai sighs.

"Seriously, as hot as I find fighting with you," he confesses. "If we have to wait until tomorrow's eclipse, you're not going to like how I pass the time. Don't you want to go back to your shitty friends? Fight me when you have the backup, Bon. Surely, you're tired of playing the noble hero all by yourself."

Something in his face or his little diatribe must strike a nerve, because Bonnie just deflates.

"Let's just go home," she murmurs, taking the Ascendant and using it to cut her hand. She only flinches slightly when Kai suddenly grabs her hands.

"Wouldn't want anything to happen," he winks at her. Bonnie just blinks, jaw flexing before she starts to recite the spell.

Right on cue, the sunlight dims.

* * *

 **Friday after Thanksgiving, Mystic Falls**

Portal jumping through an eclipse is much more jolting than portal jumping through a collapsing dead realm. When she comes out of it, she's cold, the late November air chilling her, so different from the constant perennial weather she's endured for the past four months. Her tank top and acid-washed shorts do little to protect her from the biting breeze.

"Goddamn," Kai mutters. His hand is still on hers, grip tight. He shivers. "That bites. Is that snow?"

The siphon looks around in wonder. "Oh shit, Bonster, thank you. I haven't seen snow here in _years._ "

Bonnie says nothing, considers kicking him in the nuts and running. But call it intuition, she's dead certain that plan of action won't do her any good.

Dread fills her as she looks at him, the monster she set free on this world. She can't even really say why she didn't put in more effort into stopping him, why she didn't come up with some way to trick him into staying in the prison world.

It was just that, fuck it all, Kai was right. Bonnie is so, so tired of fighting the good fight. Exhausted. She's so tired of being the one to sacrifice, to hurt, to keep going when she has nothing left to go on. Running on the fumes of a wilted will is no way to keep going through hell. There's a part of her, the same part of her that said screw it every time she gave into Kai, gave into doing whatever she wanted in the prison world, that is weary of being the cross-bearer. So she let loose a mad man - _so what?_ a sinister part of her whispers. It's not the end of the world if some witches die and it's certainly not her problem.

Except Kai still hasn't let go of her hand.

In fact, he entwines their hands together, fingers interwoven and starts to guide her away. It leaves her baffled.

"What are you doing?" Bonnie snaps, trying to tug out of his grasp. Kai looks at her oddly.

"Getting out of the cold? I'm not about to lose some toes because you want to fight in the middle of woods while it snows."

They're not 'in the middle of the woods' - Bonnie recognizes the outskirts Mystic Falls' cemetery and she's apprehensive about having Kai so close to her friends. She remembers that she told him about Luke and Liv and suddenly the stark reality of the situation she's put everyone in hits her.

Kai is dangerous and she set him free.

She sprung a criminal from his prison sentence. In the human world, doing that would make her an accomplice.

Bonnie starts to panic as Kai tows her along, staring at the back of his dark head.

It kills her, just how normal he looks with a backpack thrown of his shoulder and a hoodie scrunched up under his ears. It's not at all like Damon or even Stefan, who announce their dangerous natures with a bad boy persona or a brooding aura. Or like Klaus, who just radiates a petty disregard for life. Kai just looks...light. Unburdened. Like any other guy her age and if she hadn't known any better, she wouldn't have thought a thing about him except he was attractive.

But he was a liar and murderer. That was the harsh truth of the matter and she needs to remind herself of that as often as she needs to. She almost wishes she could go back to before she knew that truth, when he was just a cute guy who wanted to kiss her.

Was any of that even real? Or was he just another person who wanted to use her for her last name, she wonders bitterly.

Self-disgust had filled her when she first found out, when she remembered how good she had felt having a child-killer inside her, fucking her. And she still feels that loathing, because despite it all, she _still_ wants him, even in spite of all the crazy he embodied. It's worse now though, because it's not just self-loathing, but disappointment, another shot to her ego.

Is there ever going to be anyone that just wants her for her?

She doesn't realize she'd stopped walking or that she was crying until large, warm fingers smear away the tears on her face.

"It's too cold for that," Kai tells her. "Can you imagine if those freeze on your face? Yikes."

The siphon tucks his fingers into his hoodie sleeves, one hand holding the back of her head still and the other dabbing away the dampness with the thick material.

"You're so pretty when you cry," he frowns. "You're pretty when you smile too. Can't decide which expression is my favorite."

Bonnie stares up at him, confused. She shakes her head.

"What are you going to do now?" she questions. Kai shrugs in response.

"Make up with you. Merge. Take what's rightfully mine. Kill my coven. You already know this, Bon."

"What?" Bonnie couldn't have heard him right. "What do you need me for anymore? You're free."

Kai stares at her blankly.

"I hadn't noticed," he deadpans. "But it's been about eighteen years since I've been out in the real world. I might need a tutor and you're the only person I like."

Something like trepidation starts to fester in Bonnie when he grabs her hand again and she realizes how tight his grip is. He turns and starts to walk again, but Bonnie braces herself so he can't tug her along.

"You can just let me go," she tells him quietly. His back tenses. "I'm tired of always fighting. I'll even agree not to try to stop you if just leave me and my friends alone."

She can't see his face, but she's angled enough to see the way his jaw flexes when he bows his head. His grip tightens, almost blistering tight. Bonnie has to look at his hands to make sure they're not glowing. They aren't.

"No," he grits. "I'll accept you not trying to fight me, but you're not going anywhere."

This time, real fear sluices through Bonnie. He's a madman and Bonnie starting to realize that she may very well be his captive.

Sinisterly, despite her fear, some whispers of excitement and desire come to her.

"Kai, you have to let me go, okay?" she tries to bargain. There's an edge of hysteria to her voice and she tries to dampen it, knowing, somehow, that Kai will only be more bull-headed if he hears it. "I gave you what you wanted right? What I'm asking for is a fair trade."

Her heart sinks because Kai's shaking his head before she even finishes speaking. When he turns to look at her, there's a sort of manic light to his eyes and Bonnie can tell he's losing his temper. She tilts her chin back defiantly, but she can't help leaning away, because it's only recently that Bonnie has come to realize exactly how frightening Kai can be and how willing he is to use that against her.

His voice is low when speaks.

"You're not leaving me, Bonnie," he glares at her. "I won't let you. So shut up."

This time when Kai turns around, Bonnie takes her chances. She punches him in the back like her dad taught her, right where his kidneys should be, as hard as she can. When he stumbles forward and his grip loosens, she yanks her hand away. Bonnie runs off as quickly as she can, away from him and towards the road. She's fast, being a former cheerleader and an avid jogger.

Yet still, Bonnie doesn't get far before she hears leaves and frost crunching behind her. Kai's taller with a longer stride, and he wasn't exactly inactive. Fear punches through her when she realizes how quickly he's closing ground between them.

 _Why?_

It's the only word Bonnie has time to wonder before Kai tackles her to the ground and yanks her back against him by her throat. His hands glow bright red and before she passes out from the magic drain, she has a sick moment where she hopes Kai won't stop. That he'll drain her until she dies, really dies, and she no longer has to worry about anything.

* * *

Kai's not super great at magic, having had limited means to practice after all. It's infinitely harder to pose as normal with an unconscious girl slumped over his shoulders, so instead of carting her around, Kai uses a puppet spell his dad used to use on him to make him behave. Having her lean heavily him as she trudges through the woods like a zombie is disturbing, but infinitely easier than other options. He can probably just make up some excuse about going on a date in the woods and her getting too intoxicated to walk on her own. Bonnie is, luckily, not a very heavy girl and he's hefted her around before. It's relatively easy to bear her weight as he heads in the same direction she'd run earlier almost mindlessly, hoping that maybe the spark of recognition he saw on her face wasn't just his imagination.

Sure enough, he's soon on a dark road, and he turns towards Mystic Falls. He remembers the houses that Bonnie favored and and recalls the stories she divulged to him, trying to come up with a game plan. Kai thinks it would probably be best if he took them to Sheila's old house, hoping by some miracle that it hadn't been repossessed by the bank or something while Bonnie was 'dead'. That would suck.

He has no idea how much Mystic Falls has changed since 1994, but most places get major upgrades in almost twenty years. Kai's actually a little apprehensive about learning to navigate the world again, but he has no choice but to adapt quickly. His mind whirs with possibilities.

There's a bunch of cash he grabbed from a bank in the prison world that he has in his backpack with the grimoire, Ms. Cuddles, the video recorder, and another bottle of his mom's wine. Kai hopes that inflation isn't so ridiculous that twenty-thousand in twenties (because he's not some bank-heist-movie idiot) isn't a boon. He supposes if the dead Bennett's house is a bust, he can go to a motel, but the puppet spell only lasts so long and trying to keep Bonnie tied up with so little privacy is unappealing.

His attention diverts when a car driving past him slows and he watches it out of the corner of his eye. The driver passes him, then goes past the familiar _Welcome to Mystic Falls_ sign. Kai shifts Bonnie slightly, prepping a story in his head when the car circles back around shortly after that.

On a whim, Kai sticks his thumb out, putting on an image he thinks will make the driver paranoid.

 _Pass me,_ Kai thinks. _Keep going._

But the car slows to a stop and a dark-haired man pops out of the car, squinting at Bonnie. The recognition on his face makes Kai wary and he stares at the man, who looks almost like he has steam rising off of him. Which is weird - Kai's crazy, but not like that. Paranoia raises his metaphorical hackles.

"Hey, man," Kai greets, walking closer. He shoots the guy a friendly smile, who looks at him in confusion and suspicion. Kai adjusts Bonnie so that she's more shielded from view behind him. The man looks between, then meets Kai's gaze.

"Thanks so much for stopping," he says with a chuckle. "My girlfriend and I kind of overestimated our ability to beat the sun; she's a little tired."

"Didn't realize dead girls had boyfriends," the man replies in an English accent. Kai's grin falls. The siphon cocks his head, reassessing the man, no longer bothering with a front. Guy knew Bonnie was supposed to be dead and yet appeared relatively unruffled by her not dead status. Kai's paranoia seems more than justified now.

"What can I say? Always wanted to give necrophilia a shot, especially when the corpse looks like this one."

The two men stare at each other, assessing. Finally, the British man shrugs.

"I suppose I should be concerned that you've got the town witch in a daze," a roguish smile mars his face. "But I'm not. I'm intrigued. Name's Enzo, nice to meet you."

Looking over his face, Kai isn't exactly put at ease, but he sees something familiar in the Brit's face. Rage and maliciousness and a taste for destruction line the other man and resonate within the siphon. After some moments pass, he smiles back, not exactly at ease, but easily covering it up.

"Right, manners. I'm Kai."

-o0o-

Enzo takes them to a bar and compels them a full bottle of top shelf whiskey, giving away the fact that he's a supe. Kai suspected as much anyway, but the confirmation of his ruminations is nice. Bonnie leans against his side docilely, still influenced by the puppet spell and the small instances of Kai siphoning her when he feels her magic rising too high. He has to do it more often than he expected, which leaves him suitably impressed by how powerful his girl really is. It boggles him that she let herself be so contained by this small town and its small people long enough to die thrice over.

The tall siphon eyes the vampire to his side as he sips at the whiskey - he'd have preferred something more fun, like a Mai Tai or a Tequila Sunrise...maybe not the tequila, actually, he was so bad at handling tequila. Maybe… a mojito? Mojitos were nice. Wait, what was the difference between a mojito and a mint julep? One seemed incredibly southern.

Kai blinks watery eyes at the glass in front of him, siphoning Bonnie absently when she starts to stir. He turns his attention to Enzo who is watching him expectantly.

"What?" the siphon mutters. The vampire grins.

"I asked what your deal was, mate. I want to know if you'll get in my way or if it will be more fun to collude with you. I have a feeling it's the latter."

Kai stares at him drolly, then swiftly drains the liquor in his hand and puts the glass down. He slaps the counter loudly, ignoring the bartender's confused jump. Making up his mind, he faces the dark-haired vampire again and does what he does best. Kai talks.

"So like, I really, really want to kill my coven," he starts, fingers twining with Bonnie's behind his back where Enzo can't see. "Like I want to pop my dad's head like a water balloon, but I can't do that 'til after I merge with my twin sister I haven't seen in eighteen years, otherwise I'll die too. And who the fuck wants to die for revenge? I want to revel in it."

Enzo raises his glass to that, sipping at his own whiskey.

"Hear, hear," the vampire concurs, leaning forward. Kai continues speaking, telling Enzo all about his prison sentence and his coven, but avoiding too many details about Bonnie other than that he terrorized her into getting him out of the prison world because he needed a Bennett witch to leave. Those other memories were his. By the time he's done, Enzo seems notably intrigued, amused, and a little pained.

An indulgent smile paints the vampire's face.

"Want help?"

"Why would you help me?" Kai asks. It's a fair question. They don't know each other from Adam and Kai lied at least 20 times throughout his life's story just for kicks.

"Boredom?" Enzo offers. "Malicious intent? Besides, I have information for you Bonnie missed out on while she was," the vampire peers over at her. "On sabbatical? And it's information I think you'll enjoy exploiting and I'll have fun watching you exploit."

The vampire smiles and fills both their glasses.

"Bonnie, her little friends...I want to see them all suffer. I don't care if it's you or me causing it. It's just a bit of fun for me to revel in."

Kai lifts his glass and clinks it to Enzo's raised one, signing his agreement to partner.. He doesn't mind teaming up to get what he wants and wreak some havoc, but in his head he vows that Mr. Snooty Accent ain't gonna revel in shit when it concerns Bonnie.

* * *

 **Present day, Portland**

Rubbing his hand over the dusty box, the grey-haired witch settles back on his haunches and opens it up. Inside is a bunch of his son's things, stuff he should have burned years ago, but held more sentimental value than Joshua cared to admit. He always feels this way around big events, holidays and birthdays, wondering how different things could have been if not for his failings.

Kai was a failure. An abomination of nature without a doubt, but the fact that he was a failure was entirely Joshua's fault.

His siphoning was a punishment for Joshua's arrogance afterall.

The page he lands on has his favorite picture of Jo and Kai. It was their first birthday, and both twins were in nothing but diapers and matching "birthday girl" and "birthday boy" bibs. Jo was crying because she hadn't liked all the noise and she hadn't even touched her smash cake, too busy looking for her mother to bother with sweets. Kai, in contrast, was covered in his confection, his four bottom teeth - the only teeth he had - revealed in a happy grin, and offering a fat fistful towards the camera - towards Joshua, who'd taken the picture. It angers and saddens the Gemini leader to think how his sweet little boy grew into such a monster.

He sighs. It's not like Kai hadn't had coven leader potential. If Joshua was honest with himself, Kai had showed far more predilection for leading than Josette or either of the younger twins. His eldest had been hungry and ambitious and visionary - he was also so unsympathetic and impulsive and had such a streak of cruelty that the idea of him winning the merge and his antisocial personality not being selected out had presented such a high fear of coven ruination that the Elders and eventually Joshua succumbed to the idea that he could never be leader. It just wouldn't be right.

But in times like this, with Lucas and Olivia's merge ceremony just around the corner, it puts Joshua in a sentimental mood. Stupid what if's drift in and out of his head: What if Kai wasn't a siphon? What if his mind had been normal? What if Joshua hadn't failed him so spectacularly? What if their coven wasn't so cut throat about selecting leadership?

None of these thoughts were anything Joshua had subscribed to before one of his kids slaughter over half of the others. Before he lost his both his eldest children in some way or another to fear and anger.

A droplet splashes against the photo, between his first-borns and Joshua scowls to himself, wiping away the tear and slamming the photo album shut. Old age is making him sentimental. Joshua isn't at all looking forward to retirement, not sure how he'll deal with the ghosts of his past bombarding him with regrets.

Reboxing the photobook and sealing off his sentiments with it, he sends the box back to its hiding place with the flick of his wrist and stands. It's time to leave the attic and go back to the real world. And just in time too, as his phone rang, Lucas' grinning face lighting up it's screen.

"Hey!" he greets, putting as much cheer in his voice as he can. "How's my favorite boy?"

"Dad," Lucas sounds grim and a little desperate, his voice higher than normal. The Gemini leader frowns at his son's inflection.

"What's wrong, Lucas?"

"Dad, I...it's," Lucas sighs. "I don't know how to say this."

"If you're trying to tell me you're gay," Joshua teases him dryly, trying to calm him down. "I already know."

"Stop, Dad, listen! Kai's escaped the prison world."

Something in Joshua flutters in his sternum - it feels a lot like pain. There's a tinny sound, like ringing after a loud noise, that echoes in his ear.

"What did you say?" he grits.

"It's a long story, but I had to go to the prison world -"

"Why? Where the hell did you even get-?"

"Jo!" Lucas interrupts, a growl in his own voice. Joshua feels stricken. "You know, your oldest daughter, one of the true heirs? I got the Ascendant from her. I got Bennett blood from a vampire here, who got it from Bonnie's cousin. Bonnie, as in Bonnie Bennett, Sheila Bennett's granddaughter? I'm sure you remember her from Liv's and my reports. She died. Her friends thought it was possible that she didn't crossover because of something that she told Damon Sheila said to her. The possibility arose and Jo said we should at least check it out and Dad…

Lucas's voice falls quiet, leaving only the sickening ring in Joshua's ear. Kai's free. Jo's in his vicinity. Even if he never heard the last of his son's conviction, he felt this truth echo through him. Kai was free.

"When I got there, there was a bloodied Ascendant. I did a locator spell for Kai and there was nothing. He's not there Dad, he escaped and he's holding an extremely powerful Bennett witch hostage. There's...the Traveler's spell around Mystic Falls is gone, one of the doppelganger vampires is missing. I don't know what Kai's planning, but it can't be good."

Unbidden, Joshua's mind flashes to the picture of a smiling baby Kai offering him cake. In the memory that followed the snapshot, Joshua had accepted the offering and kissed his squealing son's cheek. And his next memory is Kai as a young man, coated in his siblings' blood and staring at him and the rest of the coven in rage and resignation. Joshua's eyes close in sick revelation that the monster of his making is unleashed on the world once more.

"You need to come to Mystic Falls, Dad. This is coven business."

* * *

Sounds buzz in and out of Elena's ear as she comes to. Her body feels heavy, leaden and she feels too weak to even blink, a first since adjusting to a vampire lifestyle. She coughs, and agony wracks her body, limbs and organs cramping up in dismay.

The buzzing noise takes on a different cadence, forms patterns that Elena recognizes as words and distinct voices. One is higher pitched than the other, sounds familiar and desperate. Elena tries to pull herself together and focus, but her head aches from the effort. Slowly, she rolls to her side and squints her eyes open.

The light fades in and out.

She sees Bonnie in one bright moment, their old cheer uniform looking garish and gruesome on her with her hair short and her face devastated. Like an ill fit. It goes dark again.

Then next bright moment has Bonnie on her knees next to her and it takes Elena by surprise at how quickly Bonnie crossed over to her. Or maybe Elena passed out again. Vaguely she can make out Bonnie's mouth moving and thinks her friend might be calling her name. Darkness filters back in.

When it's bright again she sees a dark figure swiftly approaching behind Bonnie and she wants to stand, warn her friend, something. Anger comes to her easy and she glares at the tall form when it swoops down and grabs at Bonnie with dangerous hands.

Elena tries to hold onto the smaller woman as she's pulled away, but Kai is faster at pulling her away.

"Look, look, she's fine," the tall witch chuckles, holding Bonnie in such a personal way it actually enrages Elena to think that such a disgusting man could act so familiar with a woman as amazing as Bonnie. "Stop crying, Bon. She's good."

"Bonnie," Elena croaks.

The vampire is gripping onto her consciousness with an iron will, the events of the past few hours flooding her. After Enzo presented his ultimatum, Elena had agreed to come with him, surprised when he drove them past the Mystic Falls city line without any adverse effects towards either vampire, confused when he brought them to her old high school and relieved when she saw Bonnie huddled up in the natatorium, staring at the swimming pool with wide, distant eyes. Then finally alarmed when she saw a tall, handsome man crouching next to her small best friend, murmuring in low voice as he stroked her back in genteel, yet alarmingly possessive and entitled way. It was a study of contrasts the way the man seemed to want to touch Bonnie but not alarm her with it. Elena knew without a doubt the first time that Kai looked at her that whatever bit of humanity lived in him died any instant his attention wasn't directed at Bonnie.

It reflected Damon's affection for Elena and had been an alarming wake-up call for the doppelganger. Being on the other side of that kind of love, it was scary. She felt disgusted with herself for ever finding it appealing in Damon, especially when she saw the way Bonnie shunned Kai and how hard her childhood friend had fought to try to free them.

"See? She's even talking! Totally okay."

Kai swings Bonnie away and nudges Elena's ankle with his foot. The vampire twitches, her body's aborted effort to try to fuck him up, but he spent the last ten minutes transfiguring her blood into acid. Her entire body is like goo trying to solidify and if Bonnie's anxious face is anything to go by, Elena probably looks as good as she feels. The siphon just chuckles at her plight.

"Yeah, Bon, she'll be fine. Stop worrying! I didn't mess her up that bad."

"Fuck you!" Bonnie's voice is a growl and Elena is proud of how she never cows.

"Here? Naughty girl. Right in front of your friend? I never knew you were into exhibitionism."

And he keeps saying shit like that, things that make Elena think he's been more intimate with her friend than Bonnie would have anyone know. Which baffles the vampire because Bonnie was never like her or Caroline, never let herself get pulled in by any sort of bad boy charm and seemed doubly odd because Elena has only witnessed Bonnie's determination to be away from the other witch. That Kai spoke to her so intimately was alarming.

"Let us go, Kai," Bonnie's voice is low and venomous and Elena's vision finally clears.

She sees her friend, little Bonnie, standing toe-to-toe with tall man who spent the last few hours terrorizing them and the last hour specifically torturing Elena. The brunette's eyes flit between them as she sits up sees the way a feral smile etches across Kai's face, all dimples and white teeth. He leans in close and the vervain soaked binds that hold her sting Elena as she moves instinctively to stop him.

If Kai spent the last few hours terrorizing them, how did he spend the last few months? What the hell did he do to Bonnie when she was alone and possibly without magic?

The tall witch's eyes dart to Elena when she moves and he raises a hand. Instantly, Elena's head pounds with a fury, a headache unlike anything she's felt before ringing in her head. It was even worse than the aneurysms Bonnie gave her on prom night.

There's a high-pitched wailing that Elena belatedly realizes is coming from her. Bonnie is grabbing at Kai's arm trying to pull his attention away from the doppelganger, to make him stop. His grin turns into an ugly sneer as he looks at Elena.

"Mind your own business," he quips then twists his hand. It goes dark again. The last thing Elena hears is Bonnie crying her name.

-o0o-

This time when she wakes up, her arms are slung above her head in front of the old trophy display case, the tips of her toes brushing the linoleum floor. There's a gag in her mouth that tastes and feels heavily of vervain and across from her, Bonnie is strung up similarly. Kai is between them, fiddling with a tripod and a laptop in a chair. He's muttering to himself, eyebrows wrinkled in concentration.

"And then connect it to the webcam?" his head swivels between the camera on the tripod and the laptop screen. A green breaks out on his face as he stares at the screen and then waves his hand in front of the standing camera. The psycho turns his beaming face over his shoulder, ignoring Elena.

"Bon! I did it!" he sounds like an excited puppy and it sickens Elena.

The dread that Kai inadvertently struck in her makes her want to pull Bonnie away. She understands more than ever why Caroline and the girl being held hostage with her were so vehemently against her dating Damon.

Kai angles the camera at Elena and her dread depends. She meets Bonnie's gaze and her best friend's green eyes hold a wealth of emotion. There's a pleading to Bonnie's face that Elena can't comprehend.

"Alright," Kai drawls, redirecting both girls' attention. "This is a big moment for me. My first ever Skype call. Lor-en-zo told me about how to do it. Ready?"

He clicks something on the laptop and a familiar ringing tone fills the air.

* * *

The paramedics had already left with Sarah a while ago when Matt notices it. Stefan is asking Liv and Jo what might have happened with the newly discovered Salvatore, trying to sort out exactly what caused her seizure when the blonde man's voice rings out.

"Where did Elena go?"

The conversation between the two witch sisters and Stefan pauses. Everyone else looks up from their various spots around Tyler's room where they were decompressing to stare at Matt blankly.

"I think," Caroline ventures. "I think I haven't seen her since she went outside. That was over an hour ago."

Stefan frowns then. "She wasn't there."

"What?" Jo and Damon both query.

"When I walked Sarah out," Stefan clarifies. "I didn't see her outside. She said she'd bring the EMTs in, but they rang the bell. I didn't even think about it." He sounds troubled by his admission.

"So what, she just ran away?" Liv scoffs. Caroline shakes her head.

"That's not like her at all. Something must have -"

 _Do-do-do. Do-do-do._

A familiar ringing interrupts her mid-speech and the occupants of the room all turn to look at pristine silver laptop sitting neatly on Tyler's desk. A tense hush falls over the room, as if everyone took a collective breath. Matt feels the small hairs on his nape rise when the picture of the Mystic Falls High Timberwolf appears above the name _cobrakai1972_ on the black screen _._

Finally Tyler asks softly, "Whose laptop is that?"

No one claimed it.

* * *

 **Envy: One shouldn't take joy in the misery of others. || Kindness: But don't mistake that for weakness.**


End file.
